Taqwa Media

Taqwa Media Group  ON February 16th 2020, Islamic State fighters in Somalia released photos of their fighters training in newly renamed training camps. The camps were named after former IS leaders Abu Bakar Al Baghdadi and Abu Hassan Al Muhajiri - both killed.  ISIS’s branch in Somalia has failed to take off from the word go. Although they have claimed several attacks in Puntland, the almost dysfunctional group had minimized attacks in Somalia due to huge rivalry with AlShabaab and invasions by security forces.  Drastically weakened, the group has since taken retreat in Puntland’s Golis and Bari mountains to hide from endless airstrikes from the US military.  IS-Somalia’s bid to expand territory suffered a series of impediments following their fall out with Al-Qaida’s strongest branch-        Al-Shabaab which enjoys a significant following in the horn of Africa. Al-Shabaab spokesman once labeled IS a ‘disease’ and ‘cancer’ which has to be gotten rid of.  In 2015 propaganda

By Abdi Latif Dahir for New York Times  MOGADISHU, Somalia — She had just finished battling the floods, and then the bomb went off. For a month of 10-hour days, Dr. Amina Abdulkadir Isack, 27, tended to anemic mothers, children with malaria and pregnant women as a volunteer in central Somalia, where record floods had left thousands of people in dire need of help the government could scarcely provide. But only days after she came home, on a hot Mogadishu morning in late December, terrorists detonated an explosives-laden truck in a busy intersection, killing 82 people and injuring nearly 150, including university students studying to become health specialists and doctors like her. Valueimpression Placeholder Dr. Isack sprang right back into action, helping a youth-led crisis response team of volunteers who tracked the victims, called their families, collected donations and performed many services the government was too overwhelmed to manage on its own. “The youth are the ones who build n

Old issues of contingency and debates about the treatment of Muslims and disregard for Muslim casualties seem to be resurfacing within the ranks of Al-Shabaab.  The group is notoriously known for its lack of tolerance towards dissenting opinions. Rebellious members who disagree with the leader, risk imprisonment or even execution.   In 2010, Alshabaab attempted to oust AMISOM forces in a frontal attack, rather than the asymmetric operations it usually favors.  The Ramadan offensive left sub-commanders Hasan Yaqub and Mukhtar Robow disgruntled with Godane’s leadership. After the offensive, one of al-Shabaab’s strengths, its shura council, ceased to exist, probably due to animosity between members especially top leaders.  Several al-Shabaab leaders announced a fatwa (religious ruling), removing the requirement that al-Shabaab fighters be loyal to the Amir if he was violating the Qur’an, which they alleged Godane guilty of by targeting dissenters within the group. These leader

With Green Beret Tactics, Combating Gang Warfare Massachusetts State Troopers Luis Rodriguez, left, and Stephen Gregorczyk stopping a suspect in the Brightwood neighborhood of Springfield, Mass. Credit. SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — At first glance, the Brightwood neighborhood in this central New England city would seem to have little in common with war-torn villages in Iraq or Afghanistan. But when two Massachusetts state troopers, Michael Cutone and Thomas Sarrouf, returned to their jobs here after deployments with a Green Beret unit in Iraq, they noticed troubling parallels. Like the residents of Avghani, the small northern Iraqi town where the two had helped establish and train a local police force to combat insurgents, many families in Brightwood, a low-income, largely Puerto Rican neighborhood in the North End, lived in fear. Gang members and drug dealers cruised the streets on motor scooters carrying SKS semiautomatic rifles in broad daylight. Gunfire erupted almost daily. Perhaps the on

Kenya’s former deputy speaker of parliament, Faarah Ma’alim on his twitter page, made some controversial statements about the actions of the Kenya military forces in Somalia specifically in Gedo region. Faarah Ma’alim has called for the immediate removal of the Kenya Defense Forces who are part of the AMISOM forces deployed in Somalia to fight Al-Shabaab. Mr. Ma’alim said that Kenya has lost the war against Al-Shabaab and the actions of its military are affecting education in the regions that are targeted by the radical group. He added that Kenya’s internal security is weaker compared to how it was 11 years ago before KDF entered Somalia.    The former Kenyan politician who hails from Dujis, Garissa county that borders Jubbaland has claimed that the only reason Kenyan forces are still in Somalia is to conduct illegal trade like exporting charcoal and selling sugar. Mr. Faarah’s statement comes days after Mogadishu accused Nairobi of interfering in internal Somal

The radical group Al-Shabaab that operates mainly in Somalia has claimed responsibility for the assassination of a trader who sells Bananas. The deceased who was named as Hilowle Aboor was a famous trader at Boocle market in Mogadishu, Somalia where he sold bananas, the same market that he was shot dead on February 4, 2019. Al-Shabaab claimed that Mr. Aboor was an undercover officer for the Somali government. The security agencies did not comment about the claims of Al-Shabaab and whether one of their men was killed. The group also claimed responsibility for another assassination that happened at the same night but did not give any explanation as to who he was and why they killed him. The terror group carries out assassinations in Mogadishu almost on daily basis.