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'We have decided to take your life'
Related to country: Somalia

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

As a Somalian journalist, he was used to threats and horrific violence. But a chilling phone call the day two colleagues were killed left him shaken.
By Abukar Albadri, Special to The Times

MOGADISHU, SOMALIA -- The voice on the other end of my cellphone was oddly calm, but intent.
"Abukar, I am calling to inform you that we have decided to take your life," the caller said. I glanced down at my phone to see the caller ID, which read "private."
"You're not worthy to live," the man continued. "You have three hours to tell your family and say your last words."
"Who is this?" I demanded.
"I am a man," was the reply.
It wasn't my first death threat. As a journalist in Somalia, I've received more than I'd care to count. In some, angry callers curse me as a "puppet" of the U.N.-backed transitional government in Baidoa and the Ethiopian troops that support it. Others accuse me of being a "terrorist" supporting the Islamic insurgents.
But this call came at the end of one of the darkest days of my life. Just a few hours earlier, I'd attended the funeral of a friend and colleague, Mahad Ahmed Elmi, a radio host gunned down that August morning. Then, as my fellow journalists and I drove back from the burial, a roadside bomb struck our convoy, killing Ali Iman Sharmarke, another prominent media figure in Mogadishu.
This month, gunmen shot another friend, Bashir Nur Gedi, acting manager of Shabelle Radio, who had been arrested and detained by government forces in September.
International journalist organizations say at least seven reporters have been killed in Somalia this year. No one has been caught or punished in any of these attacks.
After I hung up, dozens of questions ran through my mind: What am I guilty of? Who is my enemy? Why am I being targeted?
But for the first time, one question would not go away: Should I leave Somalia?
Many times I'd stood over the graves of friends. Now I imagined friends and family weeping over mine.
I began working as a journalist 10 years ago, at age 19, because I wanted to alert the world to the untold stories of Somalia. I had always admired an older cousin who had worked as a radio correspondent during the Mohamed Siad Barre regime, which fell in 1991.
As a journalist in the capital, Mogadishu, I've covered street battles, assassinations and public executions. I've had guns pointed at my head and I've stepped over twisted bodies on the road. I've been summoned to news conferences in the presidential palace only to be detained by corrupt officials who demanded a bribe.
Over the years, I've watched governments and authorities come and go. Warlords, Islamic courts, transitional governments. One thing stays the same: When new groups rise to power, they attack the media.
Today journalists who have dedicated their lives to telling the stories of Somalia find themselves caught between suicidal insurgents and the blazing guns of the transitional government's mad soldiers. Each is trying to make the media its puppet.
This year the government has arrested more than 50 journalists; eight remain behind bars. Officials have attempted to close media outlets and have imposed laws that restrict the activities of reporters. Somalia is the second deadliest country in the world for journalists, after Iraq, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
At the same time, insurgents have attacked and harassed us, distributing leaflets in many neighborhoods threatening to kill any journalist perceived as supporting the government. This summer we were flatly warned that we faced attacks if we covered the government's reconciliation conference.
I used to think that with commitment, dedication and a strong heart, I could survive. Now I'm not so sure. This job can be rewarding. But sometimes it feels like a curse.
During the reign of the Islamic Courts Union in 2006, I watched a guard tie a 50-year-old man to a stake after he was found guilty of stabbing another man to death. Then, in accordance with the regime's interpretation of Islamic law, the son of the victim stepped forward and cut the accused from his groin to his collarbone.
Some women began to ululate in support, but many spectators vomited or passed out. I turned away. The scene took place outside a primary school, as students peered over the wall. I thought to myself: What is happening to my country?
It got worse: In March angry crowds dragged the bodies of government soldiers and burned them on the streets. With bullets and missiles flying, I decided to take a couple of photographs, scrawl some quick notes and get away.
As I was getting ready to leave, I felt a gun at my head. A militiaman ordered me to drop my camera. I did. I emptied my pockets, raised my hands and pleaded for my life. He took my camera and cellphone, then turned to an angry, questioning crowd and declared me a spy. The crowd began cursing me and chanting.
"I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist," I shouted, showing my press card. Sweat poured from my body. I feared I would end up like the government soldiers.
The militiaman, however, had a different punishment in mind. He led me away to his leaders, eager to show off his captive.
I was lucky. The militia leaders knew me, and vouched for me. They let me go.
Still, those experiences were not a turning point. It was the killings of my two colleagues in August. But it was not an easy decision. I was born and raised in Mogadishu. To leave would feel as if I were giving up.
Instead I went into hiding, leaving my house, suspending my work and limiting my movements.
I grew suspicious. I viewed every passerby as a potential assassin.
One day, a friend and I were moving from one of our hide-outs to another when three young men came up behind us. We started walking faster. They walked faster. My heart raced. We stopped to let them pass, and one of them muttered something as they went by.
We thought we were safe. But a few minutes later, as we arrived at our destination, we saw the same three men approaching from the road ahead. We froze. I began praying and asking for God's forgiveness.
My friend said something to me, but I couldn't hear his words. I closed my eyes and waited for the bullets. I remembered the man on the phone days earlier, the chilling hatred in his voice.
Then the young men passed us by, with a simple nod and hello.
Were they just trying to intimidate us? Had something distracted them from their attack? Were they simply three men taking a walk?
It didn't matter anymore. My decision was made.
Five days later I left the country.
Albadri has worked as a journalist for several Western media outlets, including the Los Angeles Times. He is currently living in Djibouti and hopes one day to return home.

March 16, 2008 | 9:07 AM Comments  0 comments

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SOMALIA: Come back for liberation!
About this event: 100 DAYS OF COUNT DOWN
Related to country: Somalia

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

By Abukar Albadri

Journalist - Somalia

Somalia's new Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein (C) is welcomed in Mogadishu Jan. 20, 2008. Five people died in fighting on Wednesday around the Somali capital, where the AU peace and security commissioner had flown in to meet the new prime minister(Reuters Photo).

Just as the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan has become a recruiting tool for al-Qaeda, the presence of thousands of Ethiopian troops in Somalia is creating a generation of religious warriors such as Alshabab, Islamic Front of Somalia (JIS), Alliance for Reconstitution of Somalia (ARS), and nationalist members radicalized by a daily diet of violence that leaves dozens of lives.
Somalia is occupied by a renowned enemy, Ethiopia, carrying a proxy war funded by the United States. Thousands of innocent and destitute civilians including children and women were victimized under the guise of the so-called global war on terror.

The Transitional Federal Government (TFG) facing Iraqi-style insurgency is yet to succeed in the control of the capital city's virtual green zone. Somalis believe the continuing battle for control of Mogadishu has revealed insurgents to be an increasingly influential power based in a city dominated by the Ethiopian-backed TFG.

The Islamic movements have very good credit in the eyes of Somalis. They restored the hope of the people one time, when the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) defeated and disarmed ruthless warlords who divided the country into small fiefdoms under their militia control. But Western powers have repeatedly described them as terrorists and the enemy of their strategic vision of Africa and of the world.

When UIC restored the short-lived peace to the country, the Somali diasporas returned home to invest in business, industry, education, and real estate. But most of those businesses have been destroyed after December 2006 when the city fell into Ethiopian hands.


Islamist movement have reformulated both the style and ideology of their operation despite differences.
Before the Ethiopian invasion, Arab countries tried to reconcile between TFG and UIC, but those attempts ended fruitless. Three serial meetings in Sudan under the auspices of the League of Arab States failed to persuade both parts to reach compromise and come up with a good plan to end the conflict.
Things went worse when the former Prime Minister of TFG Ali Mohamed Gedi said, “I will never meet the Islamist leader." He added, "To meet Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the mentor of the Islamic movements, means to meet Osama Bin Laden.”

This statement by Gedi led UIC members to adopt a more radical stance by refusing talks with TFG until Ethiopian forces retreated from Somali land they occupied by then.

In the early days of Ethiopian invasion, Arab nations did not play major role in the Somali affairs. Officially, Arabs stood but observers of what was similar to the invasion of Iraq. Instead, a few Arab well-wishers and good Samaritans sometimes provided some financial support to the Islamic movements through business companies.

Comeback Militancy

After the Ethiopian troops took over the country, however, Islamist movement have reformulated both the style and ideology of their operation despite differences.
These movements and nationalist leaders formed new Alliance for Reconstitution of Somalia (ARS) to drive Ethiopian forces out of the country, but disputes over war terminology has split ARS with other movements apart.


Alshabab, the most militant, adopts the Islamic concept of self-defense "Jihad" to describe attacks on invading Ethiopian forces. The ARS prefers the term "liberation" instead.
Sheikh Mukhtar Robow Ali, known as Abu Mansoor, a leader of Alshabab militants, declared that his team is no longer member of the Asmara-based ARS because of their interpretation of Jihad.

Abu Mansoor said the Asmara-based alliance refused to use the Islamic term "Jihad" instead of "Liberation" in order to please Western powers. "ARS respected the western powers, and we respect Allah," he said.

The successive split of the Islamic movements in Somalia changed the political landscape and created new challenges among groups opposed to the transitional government and the Ethiopian occupation.

Divisions among Islamic movements are likely to strengthen Ethiopian occupation and enable some informants of the western powers and Ethiopian forces to join them, which formerly led to failure of the Union of Islamic Courts, Said Sheikh Abdalla Omar, a Somali scholar.

In response to these internal division Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, the leader of the former UIC and the current chairman of ARS, urged Alshabab leaders to stop misleading the people of Somalia.

Talking to some local media he said, “This is not a time for division, it is time for unity against the enemy, so Alshabab leaders must consider that.” “Some Alshabab leaders claimed secession from the Alliance, but this doesn’t mean using terms or words that would benefit the enemy of our people,” Sheikh Ahmed added.

Such calls to unify the resistance movements succeeded somehow to keep a few prominent Alshabab leaders within the confinements of ARS. Sheikh Hassan Abdulle Hersi, well known as Hassan Tukri, an Alshabab leader in the remote south areas of Somalia still remains within ARS.

“Allah ordered us to obey him, his prophet and our leaders; unless I see leaders committing some thing controversial to Islam I will obey them,” He said, “Unity is the only solution to face the enemy,” Abdulle Hersi said.

Former members of Al Itihad Al Islami, an Islamic movement that the U.S. government added to its terrorists list joined with ARS and both remained in unity. The movement changed its name to al-Itisam Bil-Kitab Wa-Al-Sunnah (abidance by the book and path of the profit)

In November 2007 al-Itisam chose its leader Sheikh Bashir Ahmed Salad, a Somali professor who used to teach Islamic studies in Pakistan and Malaysia. In December the movement formed a military wing named Jabhadda Islamiga Somalia (JIS) (Islamic Front of Somalia).Other small armed groups have started to appear in Mogadishu joining the violent attacks on Ethiopian troops and claiming no harm to Somali civilians.


Officially, Arabs stood but observers of what was similar to the invasion of Iraq.

Divided in Means, United in Goals
Despite fears that such disputes between Islamist Movements in Somalia would halt efforts to liberate the country, the common ground still remains large and fertile. Until today the common goal is still to install Islamic statehood and restore the Shari' a law in the country.

A year ago, Ethiopian forces entered Somalia’s capital to escort the Ethiopian backed president of Somalia Abdulahi Yusuf Ahmed and his former Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi and toppled the UIC only to find themselves later bogged down in the inescapable Somali quagmire set up by remnants of the USC and clan insurgents. Today, Ethiopian Forces are in the dilemma of choosing between U.S. dollars and Ethiopian blood.

A withdrawal of Ethiopians from Somalia is “A tall order.” Ethiopian Premier Meles Zenawi said that he would not be able to withdraw his forces unless the 8,000 African peacekeepers are deployed to Somalia.

African states have until now failed to send in troops they pledged, and only 1,500 Ugandan forces and dozens of Burundians are currently on the ground in Mogadishu.

More than 6,000 civilians are believed to have died in the fighting this year, and over 1 million have been displaced without food and basic health and shelter needs,.

The country remains without functioning government since more than 17 years when the central government collapsed in 1991, and the internationally recognized TFG failed to restore law and order. Islamic insurgency and clan-based violence continues to escalates.

Somalia, a war-torn nation in the horn of Africa, has moved to the crossroad of regional and international interests leaving its people with little hope for a near end to the inherited 17 years of statelessness and political turmoil.



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Abukar Albadri is a Somali freelance Journalist based in Mogadishu. He has worked previously with LAtimes, DPA, Spanish News Agency (EFE) and Aljazeera English. Currently he is a member of Somali Journalists Society (SJS) and the Federation of Arab Journalists (FAJ).