Dear Somalia Report Readers,

This past week, in Somalia...and, unfortunately, in Kenya…

Mogadishu (Sunatimes) March 10 may well go down as “Bloody Saturday,” or, at least, it might were this not Africa. This past weekend saw the latest spillover of Somali insecurity into Kenya, as a quadruple grenade attack at the downtown Nairobi Machakos bus station claimed six lives and injured dozens.

Although an al-Shabaab commander in Gedo region initially claimed responsibility for the blasts, subsequent spokesmen have denied that the Islamist organization had orchestrated the attack.

The death toll was perhaps ten times higher in Somalia itself. A day after fortifying Wajid–which lies strategically between Luq and Baidoa–in preparation for an Ethiopian advance, al-Shabaab forces ambushed an Ethiopian convoy travelling between the two cities. Although al-Shabaab spokesmen claimed to have killed an absurdly-inflated 75 Ethiopian soldiers, local residents reported total casualties on both sides of approximately 50.

While the notoriously opaque Ethiopian military means that the exact number killed will never be known, it was likely the single largest loss of life suffered by allied forces since a contingent of AMISOM soldiers were cut off and massacred by al-Shabaab militants after spreading themselves too thinly in Mogadishu’s frontier district of Daynille on October 20, 2011.

In some rare positive news, Turkish delegates, including Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bosdagarrived in Mogadishu on Tuesday on board the inaugural Turkish Airlines red-eye flight into the capital. The airline is expected to operate bi-weekly flights from Istanbul to Mogadishu, the first Somali route operated by a major carrier in over two decades.

This past week, former Transitional Federal Government (TFG) prime minister Mohamed Farmajo announced the creation of a new political party. In breaking with African convention, the party is neither United, Revolutionary, nor beholden to the People in any way; rather, it goes by the understated moniker Tayo, or “quality.” In an interview with Somalia Report,Mr. Farmajo illuminated the imminently logical rationale behind the choice:“When I was prime minister, I assembled a very technocratic cabinet… people thought we were “quality.”

The former PM also took the opportunity to respond to critical remarks made by the Special Representative of the Secretary General to Somalia, Augustine Mahiga, in a recent controversial interview with Somalia Report.

Piracy

Somali pirates kept their post-monsoon hijacking streak going, with the seizure of the United Arab Emirates-owned oil products tanker MT ROYAL GRACE on Friday. The vessel, whose 22 crew members are comprised of Indian, Pakistani and Nigerian nationals, is reported to be heading for the Bargaal area.

On Wednesday, the Panama-flagged hijacked Roll-On/Roll-Off vessel MV LEILA was reported to be heading out to sea to be used as a mother ship.

For more piracy-related coverage, please see our latest Weekly Piracy Report…while you still can. Our Piracy Reports will soon be available only as a subscription service. Please contact Venetia Archer at [email protected] for details.

The Great Yellow North

10 months before the scheduled January 2013 election in Puntland, former security minister General Abdullahi Said Samatar spoke to Somalia Report about his presidential aspirations.

Consistent with the ongoing press crackdown in the region, senior Puntland official Abdisamad Mohamed Gallan banned media agencies from interviewing any candidate running for the region's presidency, warning that any stations broadcasting an interview or reporting on the election process would be shut down.

President Abdirahman Farole’s administration has announced that it will be introducing a new currency to replace the highly devalued Somali shilling. The new money will replace the current 1,000 shilling notes with six new denominations of 1,000, 2,000, 5,000, 10,000, 20,000, and 50,000. One hopes that government officials will be able to resist the urge to use the Sudan-based mint as a personal printing press, especially in the run up to what will no doubt be a hotly-contested election.

It’s long been your humble editor’s opinion that the Somalia’s currency woes would simply disappear if Somalia junked the shilling entirely and adopted a new currency pegged to the value of khat.

And finally, in Somaliland, 14 officials including 12 members of parliament were arrested over allegations of aid diversion in Hargeisa. The officials were accused of appropriating six trucks’ worth of food aid donated by an unnamed Arab country (United Arab Emirates? It always is) and selling it on Hargeisa’s markets.

…and that was this past week, in Somalia.

Best Wishes,

Jay Bahadur

Managing Editor, Somalia Report