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.
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
US President Donald Trump handed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a one-year exemption from sanctions for buying Russian oil and gas after the close right-wing allies held a chummy White House meeting on Friday. Trump slapped sanctions on Moscow’s two largest oil companies last month after losing patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to end the nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. However, while Trump has pushed other European countries to stop buying oil that he says funds Moscow’s war machine, Orban used his first trip to the White House since Trump’s return to power to push for
LANDMARK: After first meeting Trump in Riyadh in May, al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House today would be the first by a Syrian leader since the country’s independence Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the US on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency SANA reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted long-time former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House today. It is the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May. US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack earlier
RSS