With Senior Reporter and investigative filmmaker for AJ English Juliana Ruhfus in the chair, the panel will share their expertise and experience working as journalists covering traumatic events in Somalia, and reflect on the impact of such trauma for those who live and report in the country.
The Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, a project of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, is dedicated to informed, innovative and ethical news reporting on violence, conflict and tragedy.
Juliana Ruhfus is an award-winning journalist and filmmaker for Al Jazeera English specialised in human rights and investigative work. Prior to Al Jazeera Juliana worked as a freelance reporter/ producer for international broadcasters and twice as a consultant to the UN as part of a Security Council monitoring group tasked with investigating breaches of the arms embargo on Somalia.
In 2013 “Action on Armed Violence” named Juliana as one of the top 100 journalists covering armed violence. Her interest in journalism that deals responsibly with conflict and tragedy earned her the Ochberg Fellowship and a scholarship for Harvard’s Global Trauma Programme. Juliana now serves on the European board of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma and the advisory board for the International Bar Association eyeWitness project.
Mary Harper, the BBC Africa Editor, has reported on Africa and from its conflict zones for a quarter-century. The author of Getting Somalia Wrong?, she has served as an expert witness and advised the European Commission on the Horn of Africa, and contributes to The Times, The Guardian and The Economist. Her latest book, Everything You Have Told Me Is True: The Many Faces Of Al Shabaab recounts her extraordinary experiences following the extremist jihadist
Ismail Einashe is a journalist and writer. He has written for the Guardian, The Sunday Times, NBC News, the Nation, Foreign Policy, Frieze, NPR and the New York Times, among many other places. He has worked for BBC Radio Current Affairs and presented on BBC Radio. Ismail has reported from over a dozen countries across Europe, Africa and the Middle East covering everything from migration, refugee issues to human rights and conflict. He is a 2019 Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellow, a Dart Center Ochberg Fellow at Columbia University Journalism School and an associate at The Centre for the Study of Global Human Movement at the University of Cambridge.
Idil Osman has worked for over 12 years as a national and international journalist for the BBC, the Guardian and the Voice of America, spending the majority of her career covering stories from the Horn of Africa. Through her work, she has developed a vast network of media contacts including those based in the region and the diaspora. She has authored publications that focus on media, migration, development, conflicts in the Horn of Africa and diaspora communities in Europe. She completed her PhD in Journalism and is an expert on diasporic media and development communications.
Image: Suspected al-Shabaab militants wait to be taken for interrogation during a joint night operation by the Somali security services and the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), in Mogadishu. 04 May 2014. Mogadishu, Somalia. UN Photo/Tobin Jones. More info here.
]]>Reporting on Somalia for twenty-five years, Harper has gained extraordinary access to members of Al Shabaab—and, disturbingly, they in turn have access to her. Visiting areas rarely accessed by foreign journalists, Harper paints a complex picture of life for ordinary people in the group’s grip—stories of tremendous loss, unbearable compromise, and unexpected profit.
Mary Harper, the BBC Africa Editor, has reported on Africa and from its conflict zones for a quarter-century. The author of Getting Somalia Wrong?, she has served as an expert witness and advised the European Commission on the Horn of Africa, and contributes to The Times, The Guardian and The Economist.
Nuradin Aden Dirie is an independent consultant specialising in the politics of the Horn of Africa. His experience spans more than 25 years in the areas of regional politics, security, conflict resolution, humanitarian assistance, statebuilding and elections. For the past six years, Nuradin has been Special Adviser to the Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations for Somalia. In that role he was at the heart of attempts to support the establishment of a viable government as well as helping to set meaningful terms of delivery of international development support and to address the threat posed by al-Shabab.
]]>Young Muslims are travelling from Europe to fight in countries such as Syria and Somalia, lured by groups like Al-Shabaab and the Islamic State (IS). Warriors From the North follows a cohort of young Al-Shabaab sympathisers in Denmark and Sweden.
The film focuses on a Danish-Somalian boy who gradually gained contact with the group and joined them in Somalia. With his back turned to the camera as he looks out over a nondescript housing development in Copenhagen, his friend “The Shadow” describes how the young man fell victim to recruiters and left his family behind to fight for Al-Shabaab.
In-depth discussions with former members of the Danish Al-Shabaab group break stereotypes about the profile of young men and women who join – many had supportive families, attended school and led seemingly normal lives until members of the community introduced them to a previously unknown network of Al-Shabaab devotees, and along with it a new sense of belonging.
Directors Nasib Farah and Søren Steen Jespersen approach the subject from multiple perspectives, speaking with current Al-Shabaab members, young men who have left the group and the family of one young man who left his life behind to join Al-Shabaab. A number of other very young fighters from other countries including The Netherlands, their identities concealed, explain why they left home and are prepared to die.
Directed by Søren Steen Jespersen
Duration: 59′
Year: 2014
Thirteen years on from the 9/11 terrorist attack on the US by Al Qaeda, how has the organisation evolved around the world and what are its links with developing groups such a ISIS and al-Shabaab?
With sophisticated social media strategies and professional promotional videos, we will be looking at the tactics being deployed, both on the ground and online, and how they differ from what we have seen from Al Qaeda.
A panel of experts will be joining us to examine the tactics and strategies these affiliated groups have developed and what is being done to combat them.
Chaired by foreign affairs editor of Sky News, Sam Kiley.
The panel:
Peter Neumann is professor of security studies at the department of war studies, King’s College London, and serves as director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR), which he founded in early 2008.
Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi is a student at Brasenose College, Oxford University, and a Shillman-Ginsburg fellow at the Middle East Forum. He focuses on developments in Syria and Iraq, particularly jihadist militant groups.
Patrick Cockburn, a Middle East correspondent since 1979, first for the Financial Times, then for The Independent. He has covered the conflict in Syria extensively since protests began in 2011. He is author of several books including The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq, Muqtada Al-Sadr and the Battle for the Future of Iraq and most recently The Jihadis Return: Isis and the New Sunni Uprising.
Dr Alia Brahimi is a visiting research fellow at the Oxford University Changing Character of War Programme at Pembroke College, Oxford. She was previously a research fellow at LSE and a research fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford. She is the author of Jihad and Just War in the War on Terror, as well as a number of academic and press articles on al-Qaeda’s evolving ideology and strategy.
]]>On 21 September Somali insurgent group al-Shabaab launched a devastating attack on a shopping centre in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. The confirmed death toll after the three-day siege is 61 civilians, six security officers and five militants, 61 people are still believed to be missing.
Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta has reacted by saying: “We shall hunt down the perpetrators wherever they run to. We shall get them. We shall punish them for this heinous crime.”
For October’s First Wednesday we will be joined by a panel of experts and journalists to discuss how the Kenyan government will respond and what the implications will be for the region. We will be examining the threat posed by al-Shabaab in the neighbouring countries and further afield, and exploring their origins and motivations.
Chaired by BBC Africa Editor, Solomon Mugera.
The panel:
Mary Harper is the Africa Editor at the BBC World Service and author of Getting Somalia Wrong? Faith, War and Hope in a Shattered State. She has reported on Africa for the past 20 years, and has a special interest in Somalia. She reports frequently from the country, covering conflict, piracy, Islamism and other subjects.
Hamza Mohamed is an independent British-Somali journalist who has been based in Mogadishu, Somalia for the past year and a half. He is currently working with Al Jazeera English and was previously a BBC journalist.
Jamal Osman is a multi-award winning journalist and filmmaker specialising sub-Saharan Africa. He has been working with ITN/Channel 4 News since 2008.
Ben Rawlence is an Open Society Fellow working on a book about the lives of Somali refugees in Kenya. Previously he was a senior researcher on the Horn of Africa for Human Rights Watch. He is the author of Radio Congo: Signals of Hope from Africa’s Deadliest War.
]]>The incident is reportedly related to an internal staffing issue – AP quoted MSF worker Ahmed Ali, who claimed that a recently fired employee was responsible for the shooting.
The news appears to have been broken by @HSMPress, a Twitter account run by Al Shabaab, the Islamist insurgent group:
A fierce battle is now raging inside #MSF office building in #Mogadishu. A gunman has stormed the building & opened fire on MSF staff inside
— HSM Press Office (@HSMPress) December 29, 2011
HSMPress continued to provide updates on the situation as it developed including information regarding the possible identities of the gunman and the victims.
]]>Today, I’ve selected another five from among the bookmarks I labelled ‘Twitter’ in my delicious account.
Enjoy!
1. ‘Visualising the New Arab Mind‘
Computational historian Kovas Boguta visualises the Twitter influence network around the revolution in Egypt.
2. ‘The man who tweeted the attack on Osama Bin Laden – without knowing it‘
"Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event)."
The Washington Post collected his tweets using Storify.
Meanwhile, Twitter’s rapid uptake by all and sundry included the Taliban in May and Somali insurgent group Al Shabaab by December.
A rather surreal interactive war of words online now accompanies serious military activity on the ground as ISAFMedia and alemarahweb engage in disputes over Afghanistan while HSMPress take on Kenya’s military spokesperson Major Emmanuel Chirchir.
"Potentially relevant tweets are fed into an intelligence pool then filtered for relevance and authenticity, and are never passed on without proper corroboration. However, without "boots on the ground" to guide commanders, officials admit that Twitter is now part of the overall "intelligence picture"."
5. British Prime Minister considers curbing Twitter use after UK riots
August’s riots in the UK prompted consideration of whether the use of Twitter and social media should be restricted.
As it turned out, BlackBerry Messenger appeared to be the communication tool of choice and recent research by the LSE/Guardian claims that Twitter was more useful in the aftermath to organise clean ups than to incite disorder.