Abdiaziz Arab

  A few weeks ago, the Puntland’s military court in Galkayo had found six Al-Shabab hitmen guilty of terrorism offences and they were sentenced to death. The group had been terrorising the locals for over 13 years. In the first part of this short article, I will discuss the terrorists’ campaign in Galkayo in the last 13 years, their victims and why they choose Galkayo to be the terror-centric of their campaign. In the second part, I will attempt to contextualise and put into perspective why it had taken the locals, the politicians, and the security chiefs 13 years to figure out and catch the perpetrators. Also, I will explore if any, the lessons that we have learned so far from the latest arrests and confessions. The key question here is how the group eluded the security chiefs for thirteen years and managed to kill over 300 of the city’s key figures? Is it because that the security chiefs deployed the wrong tactics to counter the terrorists? Perhaps, the security commands did not ...

After months of political infights among the Somali politicians over the procedures of the next elections (supposedly should’ve happened three months ago) we have finally an agreement in place. Although that saga thankfully is over, we nearly touched the edges of dangerous territories, and the country could have easily slipped back to old miserable and lawlessness days. Last few elections that we held as a nation, among the politicians and tribe leaders, there was disagreements, political infights (although non-armed conflicts, it had to be said), obstacles and snags. All of these impediments were overcame with some ease in one way or another, and the power was transferred peacefully to the election winners. The question that we should ask ourselves is why the 2021 election proofed to be a real banana skin, and nearly slithered our country into arm conflicts? Is it because that our government wasn’t prepared for elections? Is it the state leaders were hindering the government’s efforts...