Media blackout imposed after Khartoum gripped by anti-austerity demonstrations during week in which dozens were killed Thousands of Sudanese protesters have taken to the streets of the capital, Khartoum, chanting “freedom” and renewing calls for their longtime autocratic president to resign after dozens of people were killed in a week of demonstrations sparked by austerity...
With the Nairobi shopping mall atrocity, Ahmed Abdi Godane, the leader of Somalia’s al-Shabaab Islamist movement, has achieved a long-running ambition to join the top tier of global terrorism, writes Colin Freeman. By Colin Freeman The attacks are believed to be a direct result of the bookish 36-year-old’s stewardship of al-Shabaab, which he has transformed from...
By Peter Taylor The armed siege at the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi has focused attention on the al-Qaeda affiliate, al-Shabab. When the attack happened, the BBC’s Panorama programme had been investigating the recruitment pipeline of young Muslims through Kenya to join the Islamist group in Somalia. I meet Makaburi in a fly-infested room not...
By Mohamed Keita/CPJ Africa Advocacy Coordinator In 1968, Andrei Sakharov braved censorship and personal risk in the Soviet Union to give humanity an honest and timeless declaration of conscience. That same year, Ethiopia’s most prominent dissenter, Eskinder Nega, was born. In January 1981, a year into Sakharov’s exile in the closed city of Gorky, Reeyot Alemu,...
By Patrice Peck In light of past extremist recruitment activities, a wary gaze has been cast on the large Somali community in Minneapolis-St. Paul following the recent deadly mall attack in Nairobi, Kenya. Journalist and filmmaker Fathia Absie took notice of the effect that Al-Shabab’s recruitment efforts were having in her hometown and felt compelled...
Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed tells Al Jazeera deadly mall siege is work of al-Qaeda, not al-Shabab. The Kenyan foreign minister has told Al Jazeera that al-Qaeda is responsible for the ongoing siege of a mall in Nairobi that has killed at least 62 people. In an exclusive interview on Monday, Amina Mohamed said al-Shabab was not...
By Abdul Ghelleh I must come out of my procrastinating den in Doha and key in few words about the circumstances surrounding the terrorist attacks in Nairobi’s Westgate Mall. Exactly twelve days ago, I was in Nairobi. I lived in the city’s Hurlingham area for almost a year, not far from the Westgate Mall where...
By ELLIE BUCHDAHL Dr Muhammad Taufiq Al Sattar, 52, said he had planned to return home from Dublin on the night his wife, daughter and sons died at home. The neurosurgeon, who usually spent three weekends out of four in Leicester, said he last spoke to his wife of 20 years, Shehnila Taufiq, on Friday night....
By Mohamed Sheikh Nor Somalia named Yussur Abrar as the country’s first female central bank governor, replacing Abdusalam Omer, who resigned after a United Nations monitoring group accused him of mismanaging the government’s money. Abrar has spent the past 30 years working for international banks and insurance companies, Shador Hajji, a press officer in the presidency...
By AGGREY MUTAMBO Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohammed believes President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto are “not guilty” of crimes against humanity because three other suspects in their cases earlier had their charges dropped. Ms Mohammed who is in London told the BBC’s HARDTalkon Wednesday afternoon that the two shouldn’t be standing trial...