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BREAKING: Assasination Attempt on the president of Somalia
Recorded: March 18, 2025 Duration: 1:00:11Space Recording
Short Summary
The transcript primarily discusses the political and security situation in Somalia, focusing on an attempted attack on the president's motorcade by the terrorist group al-Shabaab. The conversation highlights the ongoing instability in the region, the involvement of foreign powers, and the complex tribal dynamics that contribute to the conflict. The discussion also touches on the broader geopolitical implications, including the influence of external actors like Iran and the Houthis, and the efforts of the Somali government to combat terrorism and restore stability.
Full Transcription
Hello, everyone.
Welcome to this really quick space that we have put in place.
We have had reports come from Somalia about an attack on the President Motorcade.
So just for information about Somalia, Somalia has been in a civil war for over 30 years now.
It started in 1991 when the president got removed from power, so he was overthrown.
President Ziyadh-Barre. It has been a very big situation where multiple terrorist organizations have flourished
in those lands, they have had also a big situation with
piracy, and that president, the president that's actually in power, has been in power since
2022.
So, Hassan Sheikh Mohammed, sorry, has been in power since 2022.
He has held office previously, and we had reports that al-Shabaab tried to assassinate him
in the street by hitting his motorcade while he was trying to travel from...
while he was trying to travel from his presidential palace into the front line.
The situation is still quite critical.
We have information that he is safe.
and he is on his way.
We have confirmed casualties on site and confirmed information about people being heard or killed.
The area is completely secured by Somalian intelligence and Somalian police.
And we are waiting on information related to his travels because he is planning to travel.
The last piece of information, and I posted up there, Al-Shabaab,
its organization inside of Somalia has already acknowledged the deaths,
has already acknowledged, sorry, the attack.
They have been very active in the region,
especially in the last couple of years.
There is a front line between them and the government
at this moment.
If you are from the region or if you are an expert on African situation,
please send a message to the main accounts and the DM.
We're going to check it, check your credential,
and we want to try to get you up.
If you have more information also about the situation,
come and share with us this information.
You can share it via DM or in the bubble
in the comments of the post.
There is major situation in the region happening right now.
Somalia is a very critical point because it is just in front of Yemen, which is also being
attacked by the United States for their role in stopping the traffic of boats in the region.
They claim that they are defending...
people, they claim that they are defending Gaza.
The Houthis are claiming that they are defending Gaza
and trying to open up the blockade that's happening
by the Israelis on that region.
And at the same time,
they have had previous encounters with al-Shabaab or other groups.
So the Houthis had this relationship with the Sumerian piracy
in order to increase their...
their supply of weaponry in order to get more resources.
So that entire region near the Red Sea is quite important.
We're waiting on a couple of people to join us
in order to continue the discussion.
But for the moment,
That's what we're getting as information.
I'm seeing some people in the comments
providing asking or providing information
about what's happening else in the region.
So if we were going to go just a big overview of the...
If you're getting a big overview of the situation...
Gaza, the situation in Gaza is going back into a conflictual position.
There has been strikes yesterday.
The situation in Syria is starting to get also a bit more hectic with what happened.
We had a space about Syria a couple of days ago on Sunday.
We were following also the situation with the Yemenis and the Houthis and the US who was striking consistently.
for the last couple of days.
And we're moving also toward a more comprehensive division
of the conflicts in the region.
Iran is still the main targets,
it seems, for the US and Israel,
for the Iranian, the situation in Gaza
and deterioration of the situation in Gaza
could be an influx of,
could create an influx of help from their side.
The main big issue that we are facing right now
is the situation in
Africa. This border of Africa have been a bed for terrorism for a couple of years,
so between Somalia, between Sudan and other countries, Burkina Faso, and other that sub-Saharian
area has flourished with ISIS-like organizations and them attacking the elected president of
Somalia and trying to disrupt the function of the country is a major news.
I'm still waiting on my co-host to join so that we can go a bit more back and forth on the discussion.
And still, anyone here who feels that they can bring something to discussion, feel free to message the main account, the main Mario account, and we will let you in.
The news is getting, is coming to us from people on the ground.
and the situation is escalating quite fast.
People have been trying to enter the periphery of the palace.
The security forces have been trying to push them away.
Information about multiple ambulances leaving with killed people or injured.
We don't have a validated number yet.
Mario's account will be having all the information as it is happening.
And we are also getting reports, sorry, I'm reading a report right now about the president being on his way to a frontline position, a more secured position, to talk to the people.
to talk to the people in that region.
So that's what we're getting right now,
people that are continuously fighting those terrorists
on the front.
So that's what we have for the moment.
If you have questions from the audience, I'm reading a bit the questions.
So some people are asking to report on Gaza.
We will do a space on Gaza as soon as we get the panel up.
There is another space that will happen later on.
We are also discussing the escalation of
some people are talking about how would there be more peace or more how can we go toward peace
And that's a very important thing.
All those countries, those neo-countries,
let's call them,
because countries that were rebuilt or restructured very recently,
they have been suffering from a great situation of change.
Multiple people don't even know the history of Somalia
and the amount of destruction and damage that civil war,
30 years of civil war is not a joke,
especially with continuous effect.
If we're going to go back in history, it started in, as I said, it started in 1991,
and then the US-led UN peacekeeping mission failed to restore the peace in the 90s.
Then there was a major back and forth for 16, 15, 16 years.
The Islamic Court Union has,
has seized control of the country in 2006. Then there was other people from the Ethiopian side
that tried to attack the territory of Somalia. Over time, the conflict continued. It ended, the
conflict ended with Somalia, because Somalia had some, sorry, Ethiopia had some foot in
inside of the situation and then over time it lowered,
we had less and less development in the,
we had less and less development happening
between Ethiopia and Somalia,
and then Somalia developed into a more, let's say,
internal war or civil war situation from 2009 onwards.
So we've been having that conflict in 2017.
The U.S. tried to help by hitting the enemy forces, the so-called enemy forces that were against the sitting government that was supported by the U.S.
But that didn't help.
They killed some suspected terrorists and we moved forward from there.
Hello, Jess.
Welcome on stage.
Hey, James.
So what's happening?
I hear that there was an assassination temp on the president of Somalia.
Yeah.
Yeah, the major explosion near the presidential palace, multiple people reported dead,
but it seems that the president is safe and has been moved out into an airport close by.
Incredible. And I think we have Peodor on. Peodor. Are you there?
Yeah, hi. How's it going?
Great. How are you? Did you hear about the assassination attempt?
Yeah, I mean, there's...
Unfortunately, Somalia is a country in a perpetual state of instability right now.
And despite numerous attempts by new governments and UN-led missions and such,
they continue to have a huge challenge with al-Shabaab, which is a very potent military terrorist force in the region.
So even just yesterday, there was some Somali pirates hijacking Yemen fishing villages off Puntland.
in the northeast. So what we're hearing now at this latest terrorist attack,
I think it's just al-Shabaab trying to capitalize on the overall chaos, right?
Right. Well, and then, you know, I mean, there was a bombing just in November, correct? If I remember correctly, like six people were killed during a UN address in Somalia, if I remember correctly.
Yeah, there's there's always car bombs and a lot of like, should we say, sabotage type of attacks.
happening in the area, but this is the first time that I've seen a presidential convoy of Sheikh Mohammed targeted.
But he is apparently safe and heading to the airport for another scheduled frontline visit.
So that shows you that he's not going to sort of be intimidated by these terrorist actions.
Do you feel like, I mean, from, you know a lot about Africa, a lot more than I do, and this is particularly in this region.
I'm curious, like, do you know what kind of groups, or maybe you can give our listeners kind of like a scope of what's happening?
Like, we know there's a lot of history of violence in Somalia, but maybe you can help paint a picture of what's been going on in the last 10 years and what led to this and what groups might be involved.
Yeah, I mean, you know, crash course in Somalian domestic history is that basically, Somalia is what's known as a failed state and international relations.
So there have been numerous governments that have come through and attempted to stabilize the country.
The country gained its independence in the...
obviously in the decolonization period.
But then it united, it united in the 1960s,
if I remember correctly.
But ever since then, there have been, you know,
separative movements in the northwest,
like Somali land, which I'm sure some listeners will know,
which sort of operates basically like a free state,
but isn't recognized by anyone.
Somalia itself is a country that's in a very strategically important place.
on the Gulf of Aden, at the entry to the Red Sea and obviously the Sears Canal.
So it's a very busy area.
And in 20 year 12, 2011, we had a lot of piracy, which led to a United States sort of overseen
sort of anti-piracy effort by a lot of countries, like a real multinational force.
and they helped suppress it.
But this has always been a problem with al-Shabaab.
The terrorist group that's been there for, I mean, decades at this point.
In 2012, they did lose a lot of territory,
but they also then the same year placed allegiance to Al-Qaeda.
So Al-Shabaab, which is the main...
opposing force in the region or northeast of the country has a very strong footing there.
And despite numerous efforts like UN missions, Amisom, there's a new African Union-led mission,
which should be getting underway relatively soon. I'm not sure in the status of that, given Trump's
reduction in support of like foreign funding and stuff.
But yeah, the government keeps trying to push back
and other countries try to deal with else.
But they're very, very entrenched.
And so they're very good at preying on...
vulnerable young men, particularly. And the last point I would just say is there's a lot of foreign interference.
Turkey has a space station of all things in Mogadishu.
The Emirates, UAE, are very active in the country.
So that An Ethiopia signed an MOU with a Somali land early last year.
So the country is basically a pawn for, you know, foreign interference in a playground and al-Shaba,
the main non-state actors that the government tries to sort of get a hold of, but they wouldn't be able to unless they had all this foreign support.
So the events you see today are just a continued, you know, reflection of this reality for a lot of Somalians.
Yeah. And you mentioned like foreign, foreign powers that are involved. So Turkey, you mentioned United States. Are there any other major players in this mix right now? Because, I mean, it is an important country, especially with the trade, you know, the canal and everything there. So I'm curious.
Well, I mean...
Around 85% of Somalis residents are ethnic Somalis,
and the official languages are Somali and Arabic.
So the Arab states are very influencing on the country.
You know, if you look at any international ranking of poorest countries,
most corrupt countries, etc.,
Somalia is often in the bottom, along with, you know,
Sierra Leone or Afghanistan or something.
And...
You know, I would say the main actors are probably Ethiopia, obviously.
Kenya, because they both share borders.
If I, yeah, they're just trying to check my maps here.
Yeah.
And Ethiopia, obviously, ethnically, they have Somalia, a lot of Somali tribes or ethnicities, as they're known, in Eastern Ethiopia.
So there's a lot of territorial disputes there.
Yemen is obviously a failed state across the ocean.
And so I would probably say that the other ones are maybe Saudi Arabia and the Emirates,
but they've obviously been a bit more focused on Gaza at the moment.
And then by broader extension, you know, sort of further afield, I guess you'd say Turkey in the US.
I'm not entirely sure if the Chinese or Russians have any presence in there yet, but the Chinese have a big base in Djibouti.
And so, you know, you might see the Chinese trying to deepen their ties in this, you know, gateway to sort of Europe, right?
If you can control that entry to the Sears Canal and stuff like that, then you can have a very strong influence over who dictates
international supply chains and commercial routes and stuff like that.
So what you might see interestingly last point I make is that obviously with the Houthi strikes on American shipping at the moment,
this may come into conflict with the al-Shabaab forces which are around there.
And we have seen sometimes occasional, not big scale,
clashes between Houthi rebels and the Al-Shabaab entity as well.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
part of a separate set because you know the Houthis have the Iran that's basically supplying theirs
Is there any I'm gonna say puppet master behind al-Shabaab or are they their own kind of
collective or associated with ISIS I think you said?
Well, they're affiliated with Al Qaeda.
I would also encourage, if there are any Somalians in the audience,
to raise the hand at the, you know, if we can bring you up,
if you've got any information on the ground, we're very keen to hear from you.
Obviously, I'm not speaking for Somalians.
I'm just trying to give a very broad objective overview
for people who are not as affiliated with the details.
Yeah, I mean, the main relationships are with Al Qaeda.
They also pledged an alignment to ISIS at one point, but then that was, I think, changed because ISIS grew quite strong in Mozambique in the past couple of years.
And there's also been just general clashes.
Al-Shabaab's one of the most potent in terms of being able to radicalize and convert people into new troops and forces.
In a way that they haven't.
Sorry, go ahead, James.
Oh, we've got some.
Yeah, I'm talking about someone who's on the ground.
Great, great, great.
He's a writer who's on the ground and who's been following Somalia for a while.
What can you tell us about the situation?
Yeah, thank you, James.
First of all, the president didn't.
There wasn't an assassination attempt on the president.
There was an attack by Shabab.
The president left before the attack happened.
And he has survived.
And he's on the front lines as of now in Midoshevel.
That's where the main operation was, where the fighting was against Shabab.
And he's leading the fight against Shabab over there.
And this is their attempt.
to kind of distract the nation and use it as a diversion tactic.
It was an IED bomb that they planted, but it was foiled,
and civilians got hurt, but there wasn't any impact on the president's convoy,
his security team and whatnot.
That's the latest from there.
What Jess was asking, it's an attempt to distract Somalia,
and the security forces there and the allied nations that are helping Somalia, that are helping us now,
from what's taking place in Yemen. Yes, there are definite connections between al-Shabaab and the Houthis,
and they've been getting weapons from the Houthis, such as even drones. They've been getting FPV drones into Somalia,
for a while. So this is another diversion tactic from them in an attempt to distract what's going on in Yemen to say, hey, if you try to touch the hooties and whatnot, if you try to touch us, we'll respond in Somalia. So that's the latest from Somalia, but the president has survived. The president was not harmed and the president has made it safely to the front lines. And he has his
Security forces and all his security team protecting him and the army standing by him and soon there'll be
This is the last point soon there'll be extensive attack and
against Ashawab by the Smart Security Forces, the Allied nations, along with also.
And it will take place mainly where they are located in such as Buhayla and Jilip, which is the Jibbaland area of Somali.
Yes.
Sultan, let me ask you a question.
We received reports right now that the security forces of the presidential palace have tried to arrest journalists and seize all their equipment and delete everything related to footage.
Why would they do that?
Why would they block people from sharing the news or sharing the information about the attack?
Yeah.
That has not been confirmed and that has not been verified.
But there's elements that are attempting to use the media
and make it seem like what the government is doing is not working
and what the government is doing is failing.
So there's a tactic being taken place or work that's taking place to protect
sensitive national security information and whatnot, especially when this enemy that we're
facing attacks our government and especially when this enemy tries to commit horrific crime.
So no journalists were arrested, no journalists were detained.
But the way this news was reported since in the morning and the way it was put into the media, it was weaponized and it was twisted in order to make it that the president has been harmed or in order to make it look like that something happened to the president.
That's why there's control on the information.
That's why there's control on how this information is put out there and how it looks and the optics of it basically.
Okay, thank you for that. I want to ask a question to another person that joined the Puntlet.
What's your opinion about what's happening? And my question specifically is related to what do you think would be potential other repercussions that will happen in the region because of this?
Pontland, are you with us?
No, Karim, welcome back on stage. You were with us yesterday. I know you fought against similar groups in the Middle Eastern region.
So tell us, tell us a bit more about these types of attack and what they aim to achieve with attacks like this.
Karim.
Thank you. Well, first of all, good morning, everyone. In the past decade, I think we have witnessed
very rapid transformation of modern warfare.
So we are, it's all about drones now.
It's all about new technology, new capabilities
and terrorist organization like Al-Shabaab,
Hayat Ahlarsham, which has just taken over the Damascus government and now call themselves the New Syrian Authority.
We have seen how they specialize and how they have improved their technological capabilities.
how they have been able to adapt to new technologies
and how those technologies have affected their networks
and their capabilities not only to interact between each other.
Because let's remember at the time of Bin Laden,
like this Al-Qaeda had to communicate with hand-written notes on papers.
And now they have all these,
their networks have become so strong and they became so adaptable.
and capable of doing things like that, they're becoming way more daring in their ambitions,
also prompted up by the successes that they've seen in Syria and they've seen in other places like in Afghanistan.
It's all part of the same network because we have to understand that these jihadist organizations
especially jihadists who wants to join these organizations, they see it as a marketplace.
So I'm going to go and I'm going to shop on the marketplace of jihad and I'm going to go wherever I feel I can be more successful or whatever sells me the better pitch.
And so they have become more daring.
Now they want to take over countries.
They will these attacks against
world leaders are aimed at the final objective, which is taking all that governments.
Now they've seen it in Afghanistan, they just done it in Syria, and they have done it partially in Yemen,
and they're going to try to do it in Africa too.
So I think that attacks like this, their repercussion, we will see it, attacks like this are the repercussions.
of what has been happening in the past few years.
And let's remember just yesterday we had the European conference,
and just yesterday they have invited the foreign minister of Syria,
who has been appointed by Al Jolani,
who goes by the name of Ahmed al-Shara.
And this guy was the leader of,
the second in command of ISIS,
was the leader of Annusra,
was the leader of Al-Qaeda in Syria for years
until he broke off from Al-Qaeda officially,
just like four years ago.
And now he gets to,
send people to the UN, get billions in funding.
So we are looking a new form of jihad in which has to,
the point of start begins by taking over government and becoming state.
And I think that's what they're trying to do in Somalia.
They are trying to destabilize the government.
James, I would like to add, I can't speak for, if you don't mind yet,
I can't speak for other regions, but in terms of Somalia,
What we're seeing is a group that are losing considerably and have been decimated and defeated,
attempting to link themselves to outfits that are foreign-backed, basically, in an attempt to extend,
in an attempt to have longevity, which they know they can't, which they know they won't,
And so this is not a new thing that they've been attempting in Somalia in terms of basically attacking officials.
But it's their final way or the final attempt to say that we've got a life in us.
We're.
We're fighting back.
We've got life in us because they know what's prepared on the ground in Somalia.
They know the operation that has been taking place against them,
but they know what's coming, especially with the nations that are helping Somalia right now.
They've stepped up their efforts, whether it is drone-wise, whether it's military-wise and whatnot.
They've stepped up their efforts to eradicate this group once and for all because...
of their ability in a way or the attempt to expand their terror outside of Somalia.
So because of that, they've been decimated, they've been eradicated this group.
So...
They won't succeed.
I'll just land at this point.
They won't succeed in creating terror in the same manner that they've created in other nations,
in the same manner other groups have created in other nations.
But they will be decimated.
They will be eliminated.
And this is not something out of the ordinary,
but it shows that this group, it's standing on its last legs.
and there won't be existing in Somalia for long.
So Alande, Pietre and Ayul de Mike.
Just to give you a 30 seconds rebuttal on this,
I want to just remind the people listening that in 2020...
So like four years ago, there was an operation called Down of Idlib, launched by the old Syrian government, the Syrian Arab army alongside with Russia, Iran and Hezbollah.
And they have went disclosed on destroying Hayat Bahra-Sham and destroying the entire jihadist faction in Idlib.
Only a deal brokered by Turkey and Russia saved Idlib and saved those jihadis.
At that time, people were saying exactly the same thing that the speaker before me just said.
So the fact that they are on their last leg, the fact that they may seem weak,
it doesn't change the fact that as long as they exist, as long as they hold territory, they can come.
They can take part.
Karim, I'll just say this. One minute, if you don't mind, James. I get it and I understand what you're saying. But with this group, the brutality and the cruelty that they've inflected on the people allows, especially the Somali government and other forces to ensure this group is wiped out.
their attempt to rebrand and they attempt to recreate themselves,
it is too little too late because of the brutality
that they've been inflecting on the Somali people for so many years.
So this attempt to revive themselves or to show that they're able to do something
in...
it's something that, especially the people within Somalia and within the region, is saying it will not succeed because the people, the locals are saying it is time for this group to be eradicated, to be eliminated, and we would rather have an all-out war that
then legitimize basically evil that should have been eliminated a long time ago.
So that is where it's at within this group and the Somali people.
It is not, so that's why I land with this James, it is not comparable to other nations and other terror groups.
either in the Middle East or in different areas within Somalia,
this group is seen as an evil that has to go one way or the other.
That's why this attempt that they're doing or at this sort of revived war that the launch will not work because of the different...
the different ways that they've been, that they are being decimated,
whether it's airstrikes, where there's boots on the ground,
those different methods will ensure this group does not continue to exist on Somali soil ever again.
I yield them, Mike, I land there.
Thank you. Thank you for this very precise discussion between you two guys with different types of experiences on the ground and against those organizations or writing about those organizations.
So I want to go to Amrose a bit just quickly about the situation. What's your opinion about that types of attack?
Your time, I'm assuming you mean Gaza. CISFIRE is officially. No.
No, no, no. We're talking about Somalia.
Okay, well, look, I'm Somalia far beat for me to...
have an opinion on internal affairs of another government, but a use of violence is never a good thing.
I'm sorry. I'm just hoping at some point we can address what happened tonight, so I'll just wait patiently if that's okay, James.
We will have a different space about this. Right now we're focusing on that point.
So I'm Abdul Abdel Rahman. Welcome on stage. What can you share?
Yeah, thank you. Am I audible?
Yes, yes, you're listening. We hear great.
Yes, there is much more complicity to the Alkshrabah situation in Somalia, and that is that the Somalian society is a very tribal society.
And a lot of analysis ignores that and just focuses on, yeah, al-Shabaab is evil.
And I think everyone knows al-Shabaab is evil, but the complexity and the situation on the ground makes it a really hard problem to deal with.
So al-Shabaab...
as a lot of groups of people who are members of them, specifically tribally.
So for example, the current president of Somalia, his tribal elder, is a member of al-Shabaab.
He has called for the death of the president of Somalia, the same president that was targeted with this, you know, explosion.
There's also a political upheaval in Somalia where the president has sort of changed the constitution and created a lot of disunity.
So from there, it's the federal member state of Puntland and the federal member state of Jubilan
have already had skirmishes and issues with the federal government of Somalia and the current administration.
The federal member state of Puntland has gone as far as removing its recognition for the Somalia government as we speak,
because they don't even recognize it as a government because they saw them changing the constitution.
What does this have to do with like the situation that's happening now?
Well, it created a political instability and political, you know, issues on the ground.
That caused a huge stir-up, for example, a couple of months ago.
The federal government of Somalia had a skirmish with the regional state of Germany.
Jubalan where they sent troops to a place called Raskamboni.
The troops ended up vacating the front lines.
They went into Kenya to hand themselves into Kenya.
That caused a lot of distrust between the certain tribes that make up the Somalia and the federal government and the federal member states.
In Somalia, there is, you know, each tribe has an enemy tribe.
So usually if you go to region by region, you'll find one dominant tribe.
And the places where al-Shabaab are, it's usually the other tribes who don't like them,
who unite with al-Shabaab to mess with them.
So like to get their lick back on them, basically.
It's kind of gang warfare, if you look at it, in a much more complex situation.
What Al-Shabaab does, and that is they play tribal politics really well.
So let's say tribe A hates tribe B.
Al-Shabaab will convince tribe B to come and join us.
We'll make them, you know, we'll punish them for you,
we'll make them enemy number one.
And then they'll go to tribe B and they'll also like talk to them as well.
If they don't agree with one of the tribes,
they'll join the other one to kind of mess with them and try and take over them.
So that adds a lot of deep complexity to the equation.
And there is a political disagreement within moving issues between...
About the assassination, exactly specifically the assassination.
So their goal, as others were saying, is to destabilize the government and maybe drop him to take over.
Do you think other countries had influence on that?
Because I know that at some point, Ethiopia also had some influence in that conflict.
The U.S. or other countries also wanted to get involved with that.
No, per se, because no one wants to show up to take over, I'll show up is uniquely horrible within the region for other countries.
So they're a horrible entity. They're much further deal with the president.
The reason they're doing this is because there's been a larger chain of instability for weeks now.
three weeks on our Shavella has been gained in land in what's called the middle Shavelle region of Somalia.
They've been, you know, slowly expanding a huge swath of land.
They've been taken over territory after territory.
And, you know, they are targeting to sort of destabilize just so they can come in because they thrive on this disability, you know, destabilization and, you know, internal bickering.
So what they want is...
fear target the president and that's their own and i don't think there's uh anyone else involved
other than possibly the hootis because there's been some literature that says that hooties and iran
had some sort of relationship with the um with the uh al shalab as of now where you know they're
being rather pragmatic with them they're trying to buy stuff from them and so on
Yeah, beautiful, mutually beneficial relationship.
Because ideologically, they are not similar or they are not close to similar.
I'm going to go, thank you, thank you for your expert opinion.
It's very nice and concise.
James, I would like to, if you don't mind, I would like to rebuttal.
I want to go for a minute, if you don't mind.
I won't be long.
I'll come back to you, but I want to go to the other people because we don't have much time and want to get the other speaker to chime in, and then I'll come back to you for a bit of a closing situation.
So, Abu Qad, welcome on stage. What can you tell us about the situation?
I mean, the situation is a Mogadisho is this right now, is an...
And it just, you know, what happened last a couple of nights and Somali government attacked first time 20 years and Al-Shabaab capital, Jalib, air strike.
So this makes it, you know, and unprecedented also traveling front line today.
So Al-Sab is kind of like a desperate attempt to actually show they do something.
So for you, they are trying to showcase power by attacking the capital and trying to kill the president.
I mean, they're not close presence.
They just put some, you know, garbage ban and some explosion.
An explosion happened, you know, and, you know, some people get hurt.
But it just shows like, you know, desperate at him.
You know, we are still there.
But it's kind of like last leg.
Yeah, I understand that's something that also happened.
I want to go to Abdul-Qadr.
Welcome, welcome on stage.
What's your opinion about also, same elements?
Thank you for inviting me.
You know, I contacted now, Magdishu, and what I'm hearing is that the convoy of the president,
you know, like chief protocol car, bulletproof car, won...
Sorry, I don't know if it's me, but it's cutting off.
Abdul Qaddy, you're cutting off.
Can you hear me now?
I'll come back to you.
No, it's really, it's rubber banding.
I'll come back to you.
Yeah, yeah.
Is it okay now?
Yeah, it's better.
All right, thank you.
Thank you very much.
I was moving.
I heard like there was a suicide bomber.
I was trying to be in the
convoy tried to, you know, detonate pumps by himself to the convoy of the president.
What I'm hearing is chief protocol car, not the president.
And they tried and it was bulletproof car, luckily.
So no injury at all. And president headed where he was going, El Barab.
that he was going to be there live today and just started the war.
Last couple of days, there were different kinds of like drone attacks in their...
basis like Jilip and other places.
So for them, they are trying to intimidate, like, say, like we are here and just try to
stop that way.
But President goes straight, his journal, and now he's in El Barraff, and he's just leading
and the operation is starting.
So the president is showing power.
He's showing that even if an attack happened, he's not going to stop fighting al-Shabaab and fighting the insurgency in the other side of the country.
Yeah, nothing stops him.
You know, this president, even his last term, was the same.
He was one of the presidents who always liked.
to have a war with them.
He was enemy number one to al-Shabaabas.
Even training their soldiers,
they train with the bigger of
President Hassar Shah Mahmud,
even when he was not on power.
So they now,
his aim is always to eliminate them.
And he believes that
The only security that Somali can get is to eliminate al-Shabaab.
And I don't think people are trying to add politics.
It's nothing to do with politics.
They are just people are not people who are going to lead the country.
They are terrorists.
They are not like Taliban.
They are not like Syria.
They are terrorists.
Yeah, I understand. I'm going to go to Sultan.
Sultan you wanted to give a remark after giving the three people.
Thank you so much for your introduction.
Yeah, absolutely, James. Thank you.
Look, I want to give you guys a bit of context of how much the people are done with this group in two regions.
One is in one state is southwest, but in bi region.
Another is Iran where now the offensive has started.
In Hiran, especially, there's a thing where anybody does associate it with this group.
If they don't renounce their views or whatnot, they are taken out because that is the level, that is how evil that they're seeing that this is a group that
Whoever joins them basically has been infected, basically, with a virus and a sickness.
And in By, the people are at that same level because they don't leave anything.
They destroy everything in their path, whether there's kids, where there's women, where there's the environment.
They destroy everything in their path.
And it has nothing to do with the clan politics or politics because...
they've now affected or infected everything,
everywhere they went,
every group that they've encountered,
every region that they went to.
So everybody's saying,
look, I want to live.
I don't want my life interrupted.
I don't want my kids to feel unsafe.
Even the people in the eyes where I say,
when I go home,
I want to go back to a place that's safe.
I want to go back to a place that it's not chaotic
or there's no violence.
So that's why now,
everybody's determined to ensure this script does not survive anymore and eradicated basically.
And I'll interject with this point also.
People are saying the internal disagreements that we have with each other and nothing compared to the evil that we are facing, basically.
That's where we are.
In terms of another question you're asking the speakers, I want to thank you, Petra and Mario, on discussing this issue, because Somali is facing...
massive onslaught from the Iranian regime.
That's what we're facing.
That's what we've been facing for long.
That's the thing that we've been dealing with in different formats, in different groups.
The latest is ISIS and is al-Shabaab, where we have links, where we have evidence that they're being backed.
by proxies or groups are linked to Iran.
So we are at the epicenter of what's going on globally,
and we are at the epicenter of what's taking place of either terror is eradicated
or everybody falls under that umbrella.
Absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely.
So thank you for that.
But then I'll add one more point, if you don't mind.
Yeah.
I'll add one more point, if you don't mind.
Just very quickly, because I want to go to the rest of the hands.
No, no, absolutely.
No, no, absolutely.
One more point I will add was another question that you were asking.
This group, the president, yes, is showing power.
Yeah, that's the point I was going for.
The president is showing power because he knows who they are.
There are videos back from his first term in office where they...
from bombs or detonate,
IEDs or suicide bombers while he's speaking,
outside, but he's speaking inside and he's just smiling and he's laughing because he's not afraid.
He's not showing fear.
He's saying the evil is out there, the enemy is out there, but we're going to keep going.
So that's why this time he's going to the front lines and he's confronting this enemy head on
because if they're eradicated, if they're eliminated, it will bring regional stability and regional peace.
Thank you so much. Yes, thank you so much for your analysis. I'm going to go just quickly for Tamim, if you can give a bit of a report and then I go to old stuff and we close with Piotr.
Sure. Thanks a lot for having me and I've enjoyed listening to the insights.
especially those from people who are close to the ground there.
I just wanted to raise one point.
And I think, James, you touched on this actually,
is that a lot of the conversation has been about non-state actors.
When I think if we look at the proportion of leaders
or political assassinations that take place,
Usually the hand of another nation state is involved, whether it's directly or indirectly.
If we go back to Muhammad Musaddock in Iran, Patrice Lumumba, of course, on the same continent of Africa.
More recently, Ismail Hania, they're all kind of, it's not non-state actors who successfully execute these.
So I wonder, I mean, I know it's been alluded to, but I wonder if there might be a bigger hand involved in what has happened.
And I know that...
There's a lot of eyes on Somalia.
I think some of the different,
some of the different centers of power
that have their eyes on Somalia right now
have been mentioned,
but there's a lot more than,
than have been mentioned so far.
But I'll yield the mic.
Thank you, Tamim, for being present with us as usual.
I know multiple people are messaging me and are trying to message Mario's account.
We will work on another space related to Somalia.
Somalia, sorry, talking about the actual civil war.
Right now, the focus was really on the assassination of the president.
And we'll get more people on stage with different opinions talking about the internal conflict.
You want to bring something.
Yeah, thank you so much for letting me speak.
It's an honor to be with you guys.
Hello, Peter, Tor, and Mario and James.
So I just wanted to ask the panel who are very established and esteemed about the Somaliland's desire for independence.
And if you guys believe and think that they are somewhat a part of the instability and playing some of the chaos in the region.
And if you guys think there's any validity to their political movement and desire for autonomy, which, you know, there's some good points that they raise.
Right.
such as the fact they have a stable currency, they have got a very stable society,
they've been running their affairs pretty much de facto.
I wondered what you all think.
And lastly, what you all think about al-Shabaab's deep ties with al-Qaeda,
how bad is it, how bad is it getting?
Thanks so.
Sultan, do you want to answer that quickly, if you can?
And there's no, there's no ties in terms of, in regards to Somalian thing that he's asked.
Look, every, every, every, every, every part of Somalia, including Somalian, is fights against terrorism.
They're fighting against terrorists.
They've been eliminating terror groups.
and is a thing that we're united by.
So I'm going to say that about that.
In terms of Al-Qaeda, yes, there are links.
There are bank records.
There are weapons delivery from al-Qaeda groups coming to Ashrabab in Somalia.
There are different evidences that are there and have been called by...
either allied nations in Somalia or Somalia's allies in the nation
that are helping us defeat al-Shabaab and records and evidences that were caught by the Somali
Security Forces which indicate Al-Qaeda either through its proxies,
the Houthis and different other groups helping us Shabab and financing al-Shabaab and supporting al-Shabaab
So that link is there, but that link is one that we're determined to ensure is broken, is destroyed,
and if anything that Somalia does not be,
Somalia does not become a nation that's used to export terror to either Africa or to the world, basically.
But in terms of the other question, every Somali person today is determined to ensure terror, terror groups, terrorists,
do not use our name, our nation, our regions to export terror globally.
So I land there, James.
Thank you.
I want to thank everyone who's been on stage.
I want to go to Piotr for some comments and then we'll be wrapping up, Piotr.
Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to speak for obviously the Somalians on stage.
But, you know, I think as someone who does care about Africa and lived in Kenya for...
A few months at the time al-Shabaab's terrorist attack on the university in Kenya occurred.
I think now there's not enough understanding of just how significant al-Shabaab are as a terrorist organization.
They're one of the most
well entrenched and as I said, their radicalization has been the envy of a lot of others.
And there's been tensions between them and other groups like ISIS.
They've pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda, which has obviously been against ISIS in the past 10 years.
So, you know, I think Somalia as a country is a really...
I think it's sort of a mixture of lots of different things.
On the one hand, you've got a group who want to take it over and radicalize the population.
On another hand, you've got Somali land and communities that want to have greater self-determination.
But in all of this, Somalia is a country that doesn't really have a clear independent pathway
because it's constantly being interfered with by foreign nations, non-state actors,
I looked a little bit more into this and whoever said about the relationship of them to the activities with the Houthis now on US ships.
I think that's a very good point because...
Whenever you get, you know, governments and nation states really clamping down on, um, uh, on, on sort of these, uh, should we say nefarious actors, they, uh, they respond.
They try to put aside their differences and work together for their survival.
At the end of the day, these are groups that like anything want to survive and flourish and stuff like that.
I do think there's probably a little bit of coordination or overlap between what's been happening in Yemen and now what's happening in Somalia.
But it seems to be that the situation in Somalia has been gotten a hold of and that's because of the amount of foreign money and input that has been going in through the UN, AU and other things to try and get it under control.
unlike the Houthis in Yemen, which has had a lot more disturbances, unfortunately.
So, you know, I don't think anything's going to change, sadly, at the moment.
But we'll probably see this, you know, continuing in the next few months.
But the last point I would say is,
Just to keep this in your mind and focus on looking ahead when we host hopefully another space with Somalia for a proper deep dive discussion.
But back to you, James. Thanks. Sorry for the noise.
Thank you. No, no problem. Thank you for everyone that joined, follow the people on stage. They all bring value.
We will be having another space just after about worth financing. So the finance space, so it's a daily space. So if you want to join that,
after the space and keep an eye on Mario's account for the situation in Gaza, other situations
in the US, the possible peace agreement or the ceasefire agreement that's being worked between
Russia and Ukraine. A lot is happening those next couple of weeks and Mario's account and the team
is trying to bring you that information as fast as possible. So keep an eye, get the notifications
on and follow the people.
James, if it's possible, like a closing quote.
No, it's okay.
Thank you for your, thank you for your.
Thank you guys for the space.
Thank you guys for the discussion.
And we'll definitely join more spaces in the future.
We'll keep it for another one.
Thank you.
