Somalia’s Prime Minister, Hamza Abdi Barre, reshuffled his government on Sunday, appointing a new defence minister as his government tries to stem an Islamist insurgency.<\/p>\n
Barre did not give a reason for the reshuffle, which was read out by the government spokesperson in a video posted on the government’s Facebook account.<\/p>\n
Ahmed Moallim Fiqi Ahmed, who previously served as foreign minister and national security chief, was appointed defence minister, replacing Jibril Abdirashid.<\/p>\n
Barre also appointed a new second deputy prime minister, Jibril Abdirashid Haji Abdi, and a new foreign minister, Abdisaalan Abdi Ali Daay.<\/p>\n
The appointment of a new defence minister comes as the government struggles to halt recent gains by al Shabaab in an offensive by the al Qaeda-allied group.<\/p>\n
Al Shabaab briefly\u00a0captured\u00a0villages within 50 km (30 miles) of Mogadishu, raising fears that the city could be targeted.<\/p>\n
Somali forces have since recaptured those villages but al Shabaab has continued to advance in the countryside, as the future of international security support to Somalia appears increasingly precarious.<\/p>\n
The group has been waging an insurgency since 2007, aiming to topple the government and establish its own rule based on a strict interpretation of sharia law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Somalia’s Prime Minister, Hamza Abdi Barre, reshuffled his government on Sunday, appointing a new defence minister as his government tries to stem an Islamist insurgency. Barre did not give a reason for the reshuffle, which was read out by the government spokesperson in a video posted on the government’s Facebook account. Ahmed Moallim Fiqi Ahmed, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16143,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,2362,33],"tags":[3993,2747,3994,189],"class_list":["post-16142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-politics","tag-ahmed-moallim-fiqi-ahmed","tag-hamza-abdi-barre","tag-jibril-abdirashid","tag-somalia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}