Breaking News: Standoff at Bosaso Airport between UAE officials and Puntland

[Saahid Qamaan]

Emiratis refused for their bags to be checked. They tried load heavy equipment and bags on an aircraft!

The troops they trained split up into two, one supporting the Emiratis and the other supporting the decision to search them,

 

[Saahid Qamaan]

A ship at the Bosaso Port has been denied access trying to load equipment.

 

[sanger]

 

[Saahid Qamaan]

Emiratis saying that they are relocating equipment. I guess the relocation is back to UAE.

 

[Saahid Qamaan]

Garooweonline differs:

 

[Saahid Qamaan]

 

[Saahid Qamaan]

The Emirati officials/trainers have been subjected to a humiliating civilian search and their plane departed.

There are rumours that they are moving out of their base in Bosaso and equipment they hasve been prevented to take their military equipment.

 

[Saahid Qamaan]

They are moving out of Bosaso.

 

[Bohol]

They should leave every inch of Somalia. From Ras Kamboni to Zeylac.

 

[Abdalla]

How dumb and ineffective foreign policy must one have to be outmanoeuvred by a failed nation.

 

[Cotton Eyed Joe]

Puntland is going to regret this.

 

[RedStar]

I'm scared they might increase the Al kabab funding as a form of revenge for their humiliating defeat

 

[Saahid Qamaan]

This was a previous project brought by the givernment of Abdirahman Farole using their foreign policy excellency bringing equipment including planes even when there was an arms embargo on the whole country.

Galmudug and Somaliland were in arms on it being fearful about this $10 million annually project financed by the UAE but because Puntland had excellent foreign policy they countered those fears appriopriately.

Horseedmedia and their offshoots in Mudug called them Saracen and mercinaries though they have been used for the drought, fighting Shabaab and guarding key monumental events such Garoowe I and II.

He was a statesman.

 

[Saahid Qamaan]

This is after Puntland marvelously went around UN's blocking earlier.

Sterling helps Puntland hunt pirates
Intelligence Online
March 22, 2012

Qandala


The Dubai-based Sterling Corporate Services has relaunched the Somalian coastguard training programme that was halted by the UN last year.

Interrupted in Feburary 2011 after the United Nations raised objections, training of the Puntland Maritime Police Force is about to resume, led by new contractor Sterling Corporate Services. The United Arab Emirates-based company is not known to have any other ongoing contractual work.

The 300-strong Puntland Maritime Police Force`s brief is to combat the pirates that use the autonomous Somalian province as their rear base. Sterling, which is headed by two South Africans, Johan Vorster and Chris Grove, has been in Puntland since October, when the group delivered nearly 1500 tonnes of materiel and equipment to the coast guard service in Bosaso, Puntland`s main port. After a two-month recruitment drive, a new training session is about to get underway so that the force will be able to deploy in Eyl, in the east of the province.

Sterling employs a number of staff who used to work for Saracen, the British-South African company that began training the coast guards last year, before the UN accused the company of violating the Somalian arms embargo, prompting the programme to be halted. Saracen had not asked for permission from the Security Council to train and equip Puntland`s security forces. In a speech to the Somali Constituent Assembly on December 21, Puntland`s President Muhammad Farole said that Sterling had formally told the Security Council about its work in the province. However some UN officials consider that only the state that finances Sterling`s activities - in other words the United Arab Emirates - has the authority to inform the Security Council.

Sterling and Saracen have the same lawyer: Stephen Heifetz, of the Washington-based law firm Steptoe & Johnson. In February 2011, Heifetz, who previously worked in the CIA`s legal department, negotiated the departure of Saracen with Matthew Bryden, the coordinator of the UN`s monitoring group for Somalia. Heifetz also has a contract to represent the interests of the Puntland authorities in the U.S., to the extent that the province interests do not “become adverse to Sterling Corporate Services` interests”, according to the wording of his contract.

© Copyright 2012 Indigo Publications All Rights Reserved

 

[Saahid Qamaan]

 

[Saahid Qamaan]

The donor and financier of the project was held secret before it came out that it was the UAE.

 

[Abdalla]

Puntland is going to regret this.

I too wished PL remained neutral however UAE wanted to use PL as a weapon against the SFG. I rather kick them out than being used. UAE is done of piss poor countries like Djibouti and Somalia can kick them out.

 

[gurey]

Is PL and sfg cooperating. Dubai is being threated rat atm loool

 

[Saahid Qamaan]

Undisclosed Muslim country:


US concerned by Somali private military

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the U.S. has been aware of the operation, but is not involved in any way. He said the U.S. has unanswered questions about the backing and purpose of the project, which has begun training an armed force of up to 1,050 men in Puntland.

"We are aware that Puntland authorities have contracted with a private security company to assist them with counter-piracy in the region," Crowley told reporters. "We were not consulted about this program. We are not funding it. We are concerned about the lack of transparency regarding its funding, objectives and scope."

Crowley said the U.S. is seeking more information about the force, which officials in the region say is being trained by a private security firm called Saracen International.

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that the force is being funded by an undisclosed Muslim nation, which has hired a former CIA officer and a senior ex-U.S. diplomat to help with its creation.

The new force's first class of 150 Somali recruits from Puntland graduated from a 13-week training course on Monday. It is to be equipped with 120 new pickup trucks and six small aircraft for patrolling the coast.

In September, the Obama administration said it planned to broaden its outreach to Puntland and another semiautonomous Somali region, Somaliland, as part of its efforts to help restore stability in Somalia.

U.S. officials did not detail what the outreach would entail but said it would stop short of recognizing the two entities as independent countries.

The presence of the force has raised concern among some in the region who note that Somalia hasn't had a fully functioning government since 1991. The country is torn between clan warlords, Islamist insurgent factions, an 8,000-strong African Union peacekeeping force, government forces and allied groups.

Source: Washington Post

 

[Saahid Qamaan]

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that the force is being funded by an undisclosed Muslim nation, which has hired a former CIA officer and a senior ex-U.S. diplomat to help with its creation.