President Mohamud attends 31st Arab League Summit
Algeria – The new Somali government attaches great importance to confronting terrorism, which is ravaging the security stability of the country, which is facing enormous economic challenges and severe food shortages.
On Wednesday, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud called on the rest of the Arab countries to support his country to defeat terrorism and forgive debts.
This came in his speech during the 31st Ordinary Arab Summit hosted by Algeria on Tuesday and Wednesday 1 and 2 November.
Hassan Sheikh Mahmoud said that since assuming the presidency on the sixteenth of last May, “the government has been seeking to overcome the security, economic and political difficulties that the country is facing, resulting from the activities of terrorism in addition to climate change.”
He stressed that the biggest challenge facing Somalia is the “Al-Shabab terrorist movement linked to Al-Qaeda, in order to achieve stability and sustainable development.”
Sheikh Mahmoud said that “the movement is facing today a major regression at all levels, including the military, economic and intellectual fronts of the government forces in cooperation with international allies in the battlefields.”
fragile Somali army
He stressed “the importance of Arab support in overcoming terrorism, as well as contributing to investment in the agricultural, fisheries and livestock sectors.”
He explained that foreign debts burden countries and constitute an obstacle to investments and job creation, and for this we need the pivotal role of our brothers in our debt forgiveness process.
He continued, “As you know that part of these debts on our country are debts to Arab funds, and therefore we ask our brothers to excuse us from these debts, and work to mediate with the institutions and funds of countries that have debts on our country to be exempted from those debts.”
On the humanitarian front, he said, “It is not hidden from the scale of the suffering caused by the humanitarian situation in the Horn of Africa, and Somalia is receiving the largest share of this recurring crisis as a result of the absence of rain in the fifth season in a row.”
For years, Somalia has been waging a war against the armed Al-Shabab movement, which was founded in early 2004 and is ideologically affiliated with Al-Qaeda, as it has adopted many terrorist operations that have claimed hundreds of lives.
Al-Shabab has regained its military and financial influence as a result of the decline in joint military operations (governmental and African) against it in the past 5 years, which prompted the implementation of qualitative operations inside and outside the country, which constitutes a difficult challenge for the current government.
Despite the African and American support for the Somali forces in the face of Al-Shabaab, the fragile Somali army is still unable to work effectively what is required of a new international recipe in the face of the rebel movement that controls large areas and launches attacks against the capital Mogadishu from time to time
First published on alarab-co-uk
