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The Chinese navy on Friday handed over a notorious pirate leader captured last month after a failed hijack attempt. Abdikarim Salah "Aw Koombe" and two other pirates are now in the custody of Puntland security officials at the Red Sea port of Bosaso. The three, who were in handcuffs and wearing flotation jackets, were brought to the port in small rubber boats. Colonel Yasin Ali Nur, commander of security forces at Bosaso port, told VOA Somali reporter Fadumo Yasin Jama, the three will be tried on piracy-related charges. "These three prisoners, their weapons, will be kept here at the prison...

A US military member was killed and two others were wounded in Somalia when they were attacked while on a mission advising Somali National Army forces, US Africa Command confirmed Friday. The US service member killed in action was a Navy SEAL, a US defense official told CNN. The incident occurred Thursday during an operation against local al Qaeda affiliate al Shabaab 40 miles west of Mogadishu near the town of Barii. The wounded are receiving medical attention, another US defense official told CNN. The troops came under small arms fire.

Minnesota lawmakers sat in stunned silence Wednesday as a Somali-American woman described how she was grabbed while sleeping by her mother and relatives, blindfolded and tied down to have her genitals cut as a young girl. She still remembers the pain, the blood and a woman holding the piece of her flesh above her. Farhio Khalif’s story put a name and face to the little-known cultural ritual now in the national spotlight after a Detroit-area doctor was charged with genital mutilation for allegedly performing the procedure on two 7-year-old girls from Minnesota. A federal judge on Wednesday denied bond for...

•Somali pirates tried to hijack a cargo ship attacking the vessel in speedboats •Private security contractors hired to protect the cargo began shooting at them •The guards saw off the pirates firing dozens of rounds from sub-machine guns •Dramatic footage captures the furious gunfight between the two boats •Attack thought to have happened in 2012 but reemerged after hijacking in March Dramatic footage of a private security team engaging in a fire fight with Somali pirates trying to hijack a cargo ship has emerged online. A speedboat can be seen hurtling towards the vessel as a private security contractor wielding...

Somalia's U.S. ambassador says his embassy has learned that U.S. immigration agents are planning to deport about 4,000 Somali nationals now living in the United States. "We learned through immigration sources that the total number of the Somalis that are in the books of [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] to be removed are close to 4,000," Ahmed Isse Awad told VOA's Somali service Saturday. "Most of them are not in detention centers."

An estimated 4,000 Somali migrants in the U.S. are expected to be deported by President Donald Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

Hijacked ship's crew rescued from pirates near Somalia The INS Mumbai and a hijacked ship in the Gulf of Aden - 9 April 2017Indian Navy The Indian navy ship INS Mumbai (background) helped stop the hijacking of the Tuvalu-flagged ship (foreground) Nineteen crew members have been freed from a ship captured by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden. Maritime officials received an alert on Saturday that pirates had boarded the timber-carrying ship about 75 miles (120km) from the coast of Yemen. Ships from three countries diverted to its path. A Chinese team boarded the vessel early on Sunday. The...

President Donald Trump granted the U.S. military more flexibility in conducting operations in Somalia on Wednesday, declaring the country a "war zone" and easing restrictions that protect civilians. Parts of Somalia have been declared areas of "active hostilities" under a directive Trump signed Wednesday, the New York Times reported. The directive would mean rules that require interagency approval of air strikes no longer apply in those targeted areas, and targets would no longer have to pose a direct threat to American lives. These rules, put in place under President Barack Obama in 2013, also required that strikes would have a...

While Germany, Greece, the Visegrad countries, and Brussels all argue about who should take in the most migrants, the Saudis have evidently found a much simpler solution to the problem. A boat carrying Somali refugees off the coast of Yemen was allegedly attacked by the Saudi-led coalition which is intervening in Yemen’s civil war, reported Human Rights Watch. “The coalition’s apparent firing on a boat filled with fleeing refugees is only the latest likely war crime in Yemen’s two-year-long war,” HRW’s Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson said. Here’s their account of what transpired: One of the boat’s four Yemeni crew members...

The 'occupy' mob's organizational incoherence and moral bankruptcy continues apace:   The downtown protest group Occupy Boston threw its proverbial doors open yesterday, and played host to supporters of accused terrorist Terak Mehanna, who are looking to raise awareness of the Sudbury man’s upcoming trial.  The Tarek Mehanna Support Committee came to Occupy Boston’s ever-evolving tent city on the Rose Kennedy Greenway to say Mehanna, a Muslim American pharmacist, is a victim of anti-Muslim sentiment.  Occupy Boston hosted the pro-Mehanna rally, but, officially, the leaderless group doesn’t have a position on the case. Say, who is this innocent "victim of...

A volatile buildup of weapons and resentment along the northern Somali coast culminated in the hijack of an oil freighter this week, the first such seizure by Somali pirates since 2012, experts and locals told Reuters on Wednesday. Gunmen hijacked the Aris 13, a small oil tanker, on Monday and are demanding a ransom to release the ship and its eight Sri Lankan crew, the EU Naval Force that patrols the waters off Somalia said. Now shipping companies are scrambling to find out whether the attack is a one-off, or whether pirates could once again threaten one of the world's...

The European Union is set to approve the creation of a headquarters for its military training missions in Somalia, Mali and the Central African Republic. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said she would urge foreign and defense ministers Monday to “take immediate decisions on the establishment of a military planning and conduct capability.” She said it would provide a “more efficient approach to the existing military training missions we have.” …

Jaime French was jarred out of bed in Emerson, Manitoba early one morning this month by pounding at her front door, just yards from the U.S. border. A face peered in through the window, flanked in the darkness by others. Outside were 16 asylum seekers, arriving at one of the first houses they saw after crossing a lightly monitored border between Canada and the United States. "They banged pretty hard, then 'ring ring ring' the doorbell," said French, a mother of two young girls. "It was scary. That really woke me up." The town has become the front line of...

The United Nations needs $4.4 billion by the end of March to prevent catastrophic hunger and famine in South Sudan, Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen, yet just $90 million has been collected so far, Secretary-General António Guterres said Wednesday. With over 20 million people at risk of starvation over the next six months and famine already declared in parts of South Sudan, “we are facing a tragedy,” Guterres said. “We must avoid it becoming a catastrophe.” Convening reporters for a briefing at the U.N. headquarters, Guterres amplified concerns that U.N. officials and humanitarian groups have expressed in recent weeks about the...

On Friday the U.S. Ambassador to Somalia, Stephen Schwartz, presented a gift to the new President of Somalia, a hat that reads “Make Somalia Great Again.” Ambassador Schwartz was appointed by former President Barack Obama and was sworn into his position in June 2016 according to the International Business Times. Reactions to this gesture on twitter were overwhelmingly negative because let’s face it: Somalia has never been great.

The car blew up in the city's southern Madina district, officials say. The blast - which ripped through shops and food stalls - is the first major attack in the capital since the election of President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed earlier this month. No group has claimed responsibility, although al-Shabab militants are likely to be the prime suspects. On Saturday a senior al-Shabab commander vowed to target the president's supporters. Sheikh Hassan Yaqub said that anyone who collaborated with the new president - who he described as evil-minded - would be at risk of attack by the Islamist group.

THOMAS, Chief Judge and En Banc Coordinator: A judge on this court has made a sua sponte request that a vote be take as to whether the order issued by the three judge motions panel on February 9, 2017, should be reconsidered en banc.

President Donald Trump said refugees from dangerous locations have flooded the United States ever since a federal judge halted his executive order. "72% of refugees admitted into U.S. (2/3 -2/11) during COURT BREAKDOWN are from 7 countries: SYRIA, IRAQ, SOMALIA, IRAN, SUDAN, LIBYA & YEMEN," Trump said on Twitter Feb. 12.

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — A former prime minister who holds dual Somali-U.S. citizenship was elected Somalia's president on Wednesday, declaring a new "era of unity" as he took on the daunting task of bringing the long-chaotic country its first fully functioning central government in a quarter-century. [snip]Thousands of jubilant Somalis poured into the streets, chanting the new president's name as cheering soldiers fired into the air. "Somalia will be another Somalia soon," said Ahmed Ali, a police officer celebrating in the crowd. [snip]The new president represents a generation of Somalis scattered abroad by conflict who cautiously have begun to return...

You are my children so come spend time with me for now as you enter into worship welcoming in My Spirit of Grace truly Heaven shall open and my angelic army abound around you for you are My holy place as I live in and with you as one abiding together . Allow me to show, yes reveal to you that which are mysteries to others yet make I it known to you for you are my Gideons and we are about to take on a great victory over darkness and this is why my presence in you is expanding...