Sunatimes.com - For the last thirty years many people were killed in the Somali violence. Fathers, mothers, grand fathers, grand mothers and children as little as infants were lost needlessly. In the Islamic and Somali cultures, it is forbidden to harm or kill women, children, religious leaders and traditional leaders and elderly people. It also forbidden to attack civilian facilities including schools and hospitals according to the International law. Civilians can not be a deliberate military target by any circumstances.
Military targets is entirely different from civilian targets. Article 8 of ICRC explains it clearly as the following: "so far as objects are concerned, military objectives are limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose partial or total destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.”
Governments or states are expected to establish this rule as a norm of customary international law applicable in both international and non-international armed conflicts. According to ICRC the Military manuals which are applicable in or have been applied in non-international armed conflicts incorporate this definition of military objectives. The Somali government is obliged to follow the international conventions and its military officials should be well conversant with the rules and are expected to apply this rule in its military force engagements.
There are many incidents which are troublesome and concern and can not be justified. The government security officials should be aware that they will be accountable their actions outside established military objectives.
It is unfortunate that the most prominent practitioners of this rule in Somali military, general Mohamed Nur Galaad, to have been killed in an a questionable circumstance. It needs through investigation into how he was killed and the procedures afterwards in dealing with his body without following a proper forensic practice.
General Galaal was responsible the military affairs for the first government of Somalia led by President Abdikasim sallad Hassan after the civil war. He vehemently advocated that the military should not fight with warlords in Mogadishu. He said that that it would have been illegal in international law that military to fight in civilians quarters and claiming that it was a collateral damage was a weak excuse. He said that he had warned the warlords NOT to try to attack the government...
He confessed that his hands were tied by the international military rules ( he encouraged me to read about the military rules). That is why President Abdikasim stayed away from the military matters and no one had come to harm’s way in his tenure... The warlords knew if they had attacked the government of president Abdikasim that they would have met a very serious response from a professional militry men like General Galaal.
It is relevant to acknowledge that General Galaal chose to observe the international military rules all his life even when Somalia was lawless environment. When Siad Barre regime was overthrown he advised that the Somali military should involve itself what he viewed to be a imminent civil war. It is only fair to mention here that the General used to help the poor and the Somali military veterans who had been living a part in Martiine Hospital
Somalia has lost today one of its heroes when it comes to Somali military matters. He was a kind, remarkable and elderly man with deep knowledge in the military and Somalia’s hostile environment like the balm of his arm and the qestion on every body's lip is that, "was the general a militry target?" He himself knew the anwser to that question. But we need to know. Don't we?
It is sad that a great military chief to be killed in that way, but his family and close friends like me are familiar with his professionalism. What a great general! May Allah bless his soul. Amen.The end.
By Mohamed Mohamoud Cadde
Somalia: The Great military Chief
Sunatimes.com - For the last thirty years many people were killed in the Somali violence. Fathers, mothers, grand fathers, grand mothers and children as little as infants were lost needlessly. In the Islamic and Somali cultures, it is forbidden to