Tardo is a key crossroads between larger urban centres. The town fell on Sunday after Al-Shabab combatants drove out government-allied clan fighters, Major Mohamed Abdullahi told Reuters.

Somali lawmaker Dahir Amin said at least 12,500 familieshave fled Tardo and the nearby town of Muqokori, which Al-Shabab captured last week.

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Source: https://www.africanews.com/2025/07/14/al-shabab-fighters-seize-central-somali-town-displacing-thousands/

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The dawn attack on Adan Yabal in Middle Shabelle region started with the launching of explosives before the militants attacked on foot on multiple fronts.

Al-Shabab in a statement claimed it captured the town. A Somali military officer who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media said government troops controlled some areas and fighting continued.

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Source: https://apnews.com/article/somalia-al-shabab-attack-military-14850858cde0d18aa57453cf5c09d988

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Police officers stay in front of a building of the Ansaar International association in Duesseldorf, Germany, Wednesday, May 5. 2021. The German government on Wednesday banned the Muslim organization. Buildings in 10 German states were raided, according to German news agency dpa, which said that the donations Ansaar collected were donated to welfare projects but also to groups such as Al-Nusra in Syria, the Palestinians’ Hamas group, and Al-Shabaab in Somalia. (Marcel Kusch/dpa via AP)

BERLIN (AP) — The German government on Wednesday banned a Muslim organization that it accused of supporting “terrorism globally with its donations.”

Police raided buildings associated with Ansaar International in 10 German states, the German Interior Ministry said in a statement. The ministry alleged the money the organization collected ostensibly went into welfare projects as a ruse to help finance groups such as the Syrian al-Qaida affiliate known as the Nusra Front, the Palestinian group Hamas and al-Shabab in Somalia.

“The organization Ansaar International and its sub-organizations were banned. The network finances terrorism globally with its donations,” an Interior Ministry spokesperson tweeted.

More than 1,000 police officers raided buildings and office spaces across Germany and confiscated about 150,000 euros ($180,000).

“When wanting to fight terrorism, one needs to dry out its money sources,” German Interior Ministry Horst Seehofer said. He alleged that Ansaar International “spreads a Salafist view of the world and is financing terror around the globe under the disguise of humanitarian help.”

A man who answered a phone call to the organization’s headquarters in the western German city of Duesseldorf immediately hung up when The Associated Press called seeking comment.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/europe-germany-02413d69ad205c1139acf2d55e078a91

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Mogadishu: Islamist militants in Somalia have imposed a ban on humanitarian assistance in areas they control, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to choose between death from starvation and disease or brutal punishment. In some towns, hungry and weak people have been ordered by extremist leaders to remain where they are to act as human shields against US air strikes.

Somalia is suffering its worst drought in 40 years, with the effects of climatic catastrophe compounded by war and poor governance.

Interviews with villagers in the swaths of land controlled by Al Qaida-affiliate Al Shabab, in the centre and south of the east African state, reveal a population on the brink of catastrophe, with children and older people already dying in significant numbers. Al Shabab has told people they will be punished — possibly executed as spies — if they have any contact with humanitarian agencies.

Strict British and US counter-terrorism laws are also discouraging humanitarian organisations from delivering vital emergency assistance, aid agencies have said.

Although aid officials say a huge international effort and donations by Somalia’s vast diaspora have so far averted a repeat of the 2011 famine, when 250,000 people died, conditions in much of the country have continued to deteriorate in recent months.

An additional 500,000 people now need humanitarian assistance, bringing the total to 6.7 million.

Almost half of these people face starvation if they do not receive help. One reason for the high death toll six years ago was a blockade imposed by Al Shabab on humanitarian assistance by international and local NGOs that did not meet its strict criteria.

This time, Al Shabab appeared initially to adopt a more moderate policy, which analysts said suggested leaders were wary of being blamed once more for failing to either provide or allow help to reach needy communities. However, its approach appears to have hardened since late June, possibly owing to internal power struggles.

Tiyeglow, a town in the Bakool region that is largely controlled by Al Shabab, has been badly affected, according to its government-appointed mayor. “People in Tiyeglow are starving. Al Shabab suddenly stopped aid agencies which were trying to reach hungry people in the town. That is why some of the residents began to flee to seek food aid,” Ebrahim Abdi Rahman Mohammad said.

“Children under five are particularly in a very risky situation, because the malnutrition rate is going up, and if this blockade by Al Shabaab continues we will be witnessing more and more children dying,” Mohammad warned.

A Save the Children survey published last month showed that the number of severe acute malnutrition cases had soared in four out of nine districts it assessed in southern and central Somalia. In the district of Mataban, 9.5 per cent of children aged under five were severely malnourished.

The survey focused on areas that are largely controlled by Al Shabab. Hassan Noor Saadi, Save the Children’s country director in Somalia, said any aid reaching Al Shabab-controlled areas was “a very localised response”. “These locations are getting perhaps 10 to 15 per cent of what is reaching places where there is government control or the presence of humanitarian actors,” Saadi added. More than two million people — a fifth of the population of Somalia — live in areas controlled by Al Shabab.

The extremist group has repeatedly attacked aid workers and continues to launch daily strikes against government targets.

More than 700,000 people have already fled their homes in Somalia, 200,000 over the past two months.

Almost all have left Al Shabab-controlled territory in a desperate bid to find food or medical aid. Abdiya Barrow, a 48-year-old mother of seven who fled Tiyeglow, told the Guardian she had walked for seven days to reach the city of Baidoa, where her three youngest children were being treated by international medical teams for diarrhoea and malnutrition.

“When the drought began, Al Shabab told us that we could accept food only from aid agencies related to Islamic organisations, but eventually they said no. Anybody found bringing food aid will be killed because of suspicion that aid agencies might be affiliated to the [Somali] government,” Barrow said. “Life was extremely bad. There is no food and water. People were dying on a daily basis. The day I and my family left, a male neighbour and his young son starved and died.” In some towns, Al Shabaab leaders have stopped residents leaving their homes.

Mohammad Usman, who lives in Buale, a drought-hit town in Somalia’s Middle Juba region, said the group did not allow aid workers to operate there and had warned locals they would be punished if they attempted to arrange assistance from outside.

“[Al Shabaab] warned the residents not to move out, because they said they do not want the town to become empty, but … there is nothing to eat.

A kilo of rice is nearly $4. Who can afford that? Children and women are dying,” Osman said.

One woman in Buale, who requested anonymity owing to security concerns, said her four-year-old daughter died from diarrhoea last month. “My five-year-old son is now sick. He is severely malnourished. Al Shabaab is giving us nothing and yet they do not allow aid agencies to come to us. If you talk about the aid or call for aid, they even kill you by labelling you a spy,” she said.

Abdi Rahman Mohammad Hussein, the government official overseeing humanitarian aid in Jubaland, said the situation in Al Shabab-controlled areas was likely to deteriorate in coming weeks.

“The situation will turn into famine if the people in these towns do not get food very soon. We are very worried about the condition there.” Al Shabab is facing a new military campaign launched by Mohammad Abdullahi Mohammad, the president of Somalia, and supported by the US.

Hussein said the extremists used local populations as a human shield because they wanted to ensure towns remained “safe havens for Al Shabab militant leaders”.

“They do not want people to move out because they are worried that there could be an air strike if the civilians leave,” he added. A recent United Nations assessment said “Somalia is not yet out of the woods”, with other analyses suggesting that an “elevated risk of famine in 2017 persists”.

This year’s rainy season has been disappointing. Some parts of Somalia, already parched, have so far received only half of the usual rainfall. Donald Trump, the US president, recently designated Somalia a “zone of active hostilities”, allowing commanders greater authority when launching air strikes, broadening the range of possible targets and relaxing restrictions designed to prevent civilian casualties. He also authorised the deployment of regular US forces to Somalia for the first time since 1994. The US in effect pulled out of Somalia after 1993, when two helicopters were shot down in Mogadishu and the bodies of American soldiers were dragged through the streets.

Source: http://gulfnews.com/news/mena/somalia/al-shabab-militants-ban-starving-somalis-from-accessing-aid-1.2071927

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