Somalia facing 'foreign invasion' | ||||
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"Somalia is being invaded by foreign fighters, whose main purpose is to turn the country into an Afghanistan or an Iraq," Sharif Ahmed said on Monday. His comments came a day after after the al-Shabab group claimed responsibility for a deadly suicide attack in the Somali capital. Authorities suspect the bomber, a teenage boy, was one of hundreds foreigners, from countries including Pakistan, Yemen and the United States, that the UN believes have joined Somali groups. "We urge Somalis to defend against those groups that include foreigners, and we ask the international community to back us," Ahmed said at a news conference at his Villa Somalia residence. Overthrow Al-Shabab, in alliance with the Hizbul Islam group, has vowed to overthrow Ahmed, accusing him of being a traitor after he signed a peace deal with the interim government last year. Ahmed was previously a leader of the Islamic Courts Union, which effectively controlled much of southern and central Somalia in late 2006, and counted al-Shabab and other groups fighting the government as its allies.
Security officials say that the groups have become more sophisticated in recent months, planting improved roadside devices and carrying out suicide attacks. Al-Shabab has warned that there will be more suicide attacks against government forces in the coming days after a surge in violence this month killed almost 200 people in the capital, Mogadishu. "I can tell you that 80 per cent of the people killed and injured are civilians who were caught in the crossfire," Mohamoud Ibrahim Garweyne, Somalia's humanitarian affairs minister, said on Monday. "The clashes have also displaced 8,367 families, who have reached temporary camps outside the capital where their livelihoods are very precarious." The UN says that about 60,000 residents fled their homes in the capital in recent days, joining more than one million people who had already been displaced by the fighting. "It's almost impossible for us, or even our Somalis partner organisations, to reach these people, who are likely to go without food and shelter for a long time," Roberta Russo, a spokeswoman for the UN refugee agency, said in Nairobi. Separately, the Reuters news agency reported that a Somali religious leader, said to have criticised al-Shabab's activities, was kidnapped from a Kenyan refugee camp on Monday. Abdikadir Abdi was seized while sleeping outside his makeshift shelter at Ifo camp in north-eastern Kenya and was bundled into a vehicle that sped toward the Somalia border, the news agency reported. | ||||
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How a cyber attack hampered Hong Kong protesters
Massive public protests taking place in Hong Kong over the past week are aimed at a new extradition law, known as the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance , that would see accused criminals extradited to mainland China to face prosecution. Hongkongers feel the law could be used to legalise the kidnapping of people who express views, and act in ways, that are not popular with the Chinese government . The same law could also be used to extradite tourists and visitors to China who are arrested on suspicion of having committed these crimes. Protesters want the bill scrapped. For now, debate of the legislation has been postponed . Organisers say one million people turned out for the protests, while police estimate the number was around 240,000. Either way, it was a significant number of Hong Kong’s 7.5 million population. Commentators on Twitter remarked on how well organised the protesters were. So, how did they do it? Protesters across the world are using n
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