A small group of Somalis granted asylum by the United Arab Emirates are suspected of supporting piracy in the lawless Horn of Africa nation of Somalia, a senior UN envoy said.
UN special envoy to Somalia Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah said in an interview on Tuesday that he believed “some elements of the Somali community in Dubai are involved in a number of activities which are undermining peace in Somalia.”
Those activities include piracy, illegal weapons transfers that skirt a UN arms embargo, and possibly indirect financial support for Islamist-led rebels who the government is struggling to subdue, he said. He said the number of individuals involved was small, probably around half a dozen.
“But this is big money,” Ould-Abdallah said.
The envoy stopped short of urging the authorities in Dubai, the financial hub of the Middle East, to crack down on any Somalis involved in such activity. But he called on those with asylum not to get involved in any illegal activity.
Ould-Abdallah was scheduled to brief the UN Security Council yesterday on the situation in Somalia. Among the things he said he would urge the 15-nation panel to do is to voice its support for the transitional government of Somali President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed and to ask him to continue talking with the opposition.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton plans to meet Sharif during a seven-nation trip to Africa next week on the sidelines of an annual trade forum with sub-Saharan countries in Nairobi, the State Department said on Monday.
Washington has repeatedly pointed the finger at Somalia’s neighbor Eritrea for supporting rebels in Somalia intent on toppling its weak government. Asmara has denied the allegations, but members of the Security Council are considering the possibility of sanctions against Eritrea for its suspected aid to Somali rebels.
The council was to hear a report from its Somalia sanctions committee yesterday. Council diplomats said the issue of Eritrea’s involvement in Somalia may come up during that report.
A two-year insurgency has killed at least 18,000 people and sent another million or more fleeing from their homes. Hundreds of thousands have died of war, famine and disease since the collapse of a dictatorship brought anarchy in 1991.
Somalia’s army — a mix of former rebels, clan militias and a few ex-army officers — has been unable to beat al Shabaab militants or rebels from another Islamist group, Hizbul Islam.
An international naval operation aimed at cracking down on piracy in Somali waters, where dozens of ships have been hijacked this year, has improved the situation and shown the people of Somalia that the international community cares, Ould-Abdallah said.
He said it was time for the UN Somalia operations to move its headquarters from Nairobi to the Somali capital Mogadishu to show solidarity with the Somali people.
“We should build a ‘green zone’ in Mogadishu, like there is in Iraq,” the envoy said, referring to the heavily fortified zone in Baghdad.
Ould-Abdallah has repeatedly called on the Security Council to approve a UN peacekeeping mission to replace a struggling 4,300-strong African Union force in Somalia. But council members are reluctant to do so before the political situation in the country has stabilized.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion