Somalia elections: Qatar plans to keep its team in power

 

MOGADISHU (SLpost) –  Director of Somalia’s Intelligence agency has already hatched a plot to rig the upcoming elections in favor of the man the State of Qatar wants to win, sources say.

Fahad Yasin who served in the Qatari intelligence prior to his strategic placement in Somalia’s Presidency and later as head of its intelligence agency is the de facto president of Somalia, according to Somalia’s political class discourse.

NISA Chief

Sources point out that Yasin has already begun the process to bring the political funds from Doha into the country on the Qatari national carrier, Qatar Airways.

In order to make this scheme a success the powerful double agent, Yasin, had to deal with what he considered an obstacle to Qatar’s plot; the representative of Qatar Airways in Somalia: Horn Travel and Cargo Agency.

This agency won a competitive, fair business partnership tender with the airliner and became the sole agent for Qatar Airways. However, Yasin who was not happy that somebody from Somaliland won such tender in the first place, abusing his office power, started to harass and later intimidate the director of Horn Travel and Cargo Agency.

A senior official at the Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) who asked for anonymity, says that it is normal for his boss to use his powers to enrich himself and further the interests of his masters – The Qataris- and can use any means possible to get what he wants. Among his common means, he added, are arbitrary arrests, threats and even assassinations.

The director of Horn Travel and Cargo Agency survived two assassination attempts, after he resisted giving in to the harassment and arrest of two of his staff.

To have their plan succeed, Somalia spy-chief and the Qatari embassy in Mogadishu, sources say, want foreign workers to take over Qatar Airways operations, especially security part of it, in Somalia. This will make it easier for their plan to remain out of Somalia government agencies hence secret. Qatar Airways is now the only international airline that doesn’t employ national staff in its security and clearance.

In order to make this unnoticed sales and ticketing of Qatar Airways in now managed by a new agency owned by Yasin’s brother in-law.

Since President Farmajo’s government allied itself with Qatar and Turkey, those two countries had been heavily investing in the security and military sectors of Somalia in order to have a foothold to counter the wider Arab countries who are opposed to their support, leniency to Islamist movements in the Muslim world.