Somali militant group al-Shabab recently said it does not intentionally target Muslims – but a new report indicates that whatever its intentions, the group has a lot of Muslim blood on its hands.  More than 4,000 civilians have been killed in al-Shabab attacks since 2010, according to records compiled by the independent group Armed Conflict, Location and Event Data Project, or ACLED. The majority of the deaths were in Somalia – where the population is almost entirely Muslim – with smaller numbers stemming from attacks in Kenya, Uganda and Djibouti. More than 3,000 of the deaths have occurred since 2015.  ACLED says the figure encompasses deaths from shooting attacks, abductions, suicide bombings, and other incidents in which civilians were “determined to be the direct, primary target.” It excludes deaths from battles with the military or other armed groups, and bombing attacks primarily targeting security forces, ACLED says.ACLED also says the death toll is “the most conservative fatality estimate.”The true number may be even higher, according to records from Somali doctors. Medina, the biggest hospital in Mogadishu, has recorded more than 54,000 injuries from gun- and bomb-based attacks since 2007, of which 75 percent are civilians.  Hospital director Dr. Mohamed Yusuf estimates there were 20- to 25 fatalities for every 100 injured people brought to the hospital. Based on that estimate, fatalities from attacks involving al-Shabab may be more than 10,000, most of them civilians.FILE – Somalis walk past debris after a suicide car bomb attack on a government building in the capital Mogadishu, Somalia, Saturday, March 23, 2019. Al-Shabab gunmen stormed the government building after the bomb attack.Al-Shabab ‘regret’Following a deadly truck bombing at the Ex-Control intersection on Dec. 28, which killed more than 80 people including dozens of students, al-Shabab maintained that their intended target was a Turkish convoy at the junction and not the “Muslim Somalis.”Turkish and Somali officials confirmed that two Turkish road construction workers were killed, both of them civilians. Al-Shabab said they “regret” the loss of lives.”The attack caused the loss of lives and materials of Muslims who were caught in the attack,” said group spokesman Ali Mohamud Rageh, better known as Ali Dhere. “We are very sorry for the loss of our Muslim Somalis and we send our condolences to all those Muslims who died, wounded and those who lost materials. It happened on God’s willing and no one could have stopped, and that the enemy held those vehicles carrying Muslims at the junction.”Dhere said in his statement that the group is aware that shedding the blood of Muslims is “forbidden.” The spokesman, however, tried to justify it, saying, “Jihad comes before saving a life.”Sheikh Bashir Ahmed Salad, the chairman of the Mogadishu-based Ulema Council of religious scholars, dismisses al-Shabab’s statement. “Jihad is not their job,” he said. “They are involved in a job that is not theirs; they are doing an unlawful job,” Salad told VOA Somali’s Investigative Dossier program.”They are like a doctor who does not have a permit to perform operations; a doctor with a fake license that needs to be closed down and arrested.”Direct attacksAl-Shabab has used gunmen and explosives on numerous occasions to attack areas that are not military targets, and are known to be populated by civilians.In the deadliest examples, al-Shabab launched two complex attacks on Lido beach restaurants and hotels in February and August 2016, killing more than 30 people. In November of that year, the group detonated a truck bomb at a Mogadishu farmers’ market, killing 40 people.FILE – Al-Shabab fighters march during military exercises in the Lafofe area, some 18 kilometers (11 miles) south of Mogadishu, Somalia, Feb. 17, 2011.The group directed car bombings at a market in Wadajir district in February 2017 and again in November 2018, killing a total of 52 people. In addition, in June 2017, al-Shabab launched a complex attack on a Pizza House restaurant, killing more than 20.  Security experts and al-Shabab defectors confirmed that security forces and government officials were not present at any of these locations.Experts and defectors say the group also has a policy of detonating Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Devices (VBIEDs) at the closest possible site to the intended target, regardless of the presence of civilians.Al-Shabab defectors and security forces say triggering a bomb can be done in two ways. In one instance, the bomber sets off the device after realizing he cannot reach his intended target and faces possible arrest. In the other scenario, someone dials a number into a phone built into a bomb, causing the device to explode. The device can be remotely detonated from hundreds of kilometers away.Explosives that are set off as a result of this strategy include the two deadliest truck bombings in the capital. An October 2011 bomb, which was intended for the nearby Central Investigations Department, hit hundreds of students waiting to take exams for scholarships to Turkey, killing 100 people. Almost all of them were students.  An Oct. 14, 2017, truck bombing intended for the Turkish military training facility instead exploded at a busy intersection, killing at least 587 people.Human rights groups say they have no doubt that al-Shabab – not African Union forces, not Islamic state militants or any other armed group — is causing the most civilian casualties in Somalia. “This is due to both indiscriminate attacks and the use of weapons and weaponry that do not discriminate and differentiate between civilians and military targets, but also because of targeted attacks on civilians including individuals that took part in the 2016 electoral process,” says Laetitia Bader, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch. “Al-Shabab often claims responsibility for these targeted killings and wrongfully claims that these are legitimate military targets – they are not,” Bader said. 
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2019 was a year of mass protests on the African continent, with demonstrators filling the streets in capitals like Conakry, Harare, Khartoum and Kinshasa.  While the causes of their grievances varied, the protesters shared one unfortunate characteristic: a harsh response from security forces.  VOA’s Anita Powell brings us this report from Johannesburg. 
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 The U.S. House voted Wednesday to send two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate and approve House prosecutors for only the third impeachment trial in American history.
The nearly party-line vote moved Trump’s impeachment from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Democratic-run House to the Republican-majority Senate, where Trump expects acquittal, even as new evidence is raising fresh questions about his Ukraine dealings.
The vote was 228-193, coming at the start of a presidential election year and one month after the House impeached Trump. The president is charged with abuse of power over his pressure on Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden, using military aid to the country as leverage. Trump was also charged with obstructing Congress’ ensuing probe.
“We are here today to cross a very important threshold in American history,” Pelosi said, addressing the House before the vote. Earlier, she declared: “This is what an impeachment is about. The president violated his oath of office, undermined our national security, jeopardized the integrity of our elections.”
Trump, during an event at the White House, rejected the charges as a “hoax.”
The seven-member prosecution team will be led by the chairmen of the House impeachment proceedings, Reps. Adam Schiff of the Intelligence Committee and Jerry Nadler of the Judiciary Committee, two of Pelosi’s top lieutenants for only the third presidential impeachment in the nation’s history.
Ahead of Wednesday’s session, Schiff released new records from Lev Parnas, an associate of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, about the Ukraine strategy. including an exchange with another man about surveilling later-fired Ambassador Maria Yovanovitch.
Schiff said the new evidence should bring more pressure on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is reluctant to allow witnesses to testify.
“If McConnell makes this the first trial in history without witnesses, it will be exposed for what it is and that is an effort to cover up for the president,” Schiff said.
Later Wednesday, the House managers are to walk the articles across the Capitol to the Senate in a dramatic procession. The Senate trial is set to start Thursday.
McConnell opened the Senate dismissing what he called a rushed impeachment that is more about the politics of Democrats who don’t like Trump than the charges against him.
“This isn’t really about Ukraine policy or military money,” McConnell said. This has been naked partisanship all along.''
During Pelosi's press conference announcing managers, Trump tweeted that impeachment was "another Con Job by the Do Nothing Democrats. All of this work was supposed to be done by the House, not the Senate!''
Trump's trial will be only the third presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history, and it comes against the backdrop of a politically divided nation in an election year.
The Senate is expected to transform into an impeachment court as early as Thursday, although significant proceedings wouldn't begin until next Tuesday after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. The Constitution calls for the chief justice to preside over senators, who serve as jurors and swear an oath to deliverimpartial justice.”
The managers are a diverse group with legal, law enforcement and military courtroom experience, including Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Sylvia Garcia of Texas, Val Demings of Florida, Jason Crow of Colorado and Zoe Lofgren of California.U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks to Capitol Hill reporters following the weekly Senate Republican policy lunch at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 14, 2020.McConnell, who is negotiating rules for the trial proceedings, is under competing pressure from his party for more witnesses, from centrists who are siding with Democrats on the need to hear full testimony and conservatives mounting Trump’s defense.
Senate Republicans signaled they would reject the idea of simply voting to dismiss the articles of impeachment against Trump, as Trump himself has suggested. McConnell agreed he does not have the votes to do that.
McConnell said Tuesday. “Our members feel we have an obligation to listen to the arguments.”
A mounting number of senators say they want to ensure the ground rules include the possibility of calling new witnesses.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is leading an effort among some Republicans, including Mitt Romney of Utah and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska for votes on witnesses.
Romney said he wants to hear from John Bolton, the former national security adviser at the White House, who others have said raised alarms about the alternative foreign policy toward Ukraine being run by Giuliani.
Democrats have been pushing Republicans to consider new testimony, arguing that fresh information has emerged during Pelosi’s monthlong delay in transmitting the charges.
Republicans control the chamber, 53-47, and are all but certain to acquit Trump. But it takes just 51 votes during the trial to approve rules or call witnesses. Just four GOP senators could form a majority with Democrats to insist on new testimony. It also would take only 51 senators to vote to dismiss the charges against Trump.
At Tuesday’s private GOP lunch, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky warned that if witnesses are allowed, defense witnesses could also be called. He and other Republicans want to subpoena Biden and his son, Hunter, who served on the board of a gas company in Ukraine, Burisma, while his father was vice president.
McConnell prefers to model Trump’s trial partly on the process used for President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial in 1999. It, too, contained motions for dismissal or calling new witnesses.
McConnell is hesitant to call new witnesses who would prolong the trial and put vulnerable senators who are up for reelection in 2020 in a bind with tough choices. At the same time, he wants to give those same senators ample room to show voters they are listening. 
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A legal adviser at the European Union’s highest court said Wednesday that the bloc’s data protection rules should prevent member states from indiscriminately holding personal data seized from Internet and phone companies, even when intelligence agencies claim that national security is at stake.
In a non-binding opinion on how the European Court of Justice, or ECJ, should rule on issues relating to access by security and intelligence agencies to communications data retained by telecommunications providers, advocate general Campos Sanchez-Bordona said “the means and methods of combating terrorism must be compatible with the requirements of the rule of law.”
Commenting on a series of cases from France, the U.K. and Belgium — three countries that have been hit by extremist attacks in recent years and have reinforced surveillance — Sanchez-Bordona said that the ECJ’s case law should be upheld. He cited a case in which the court ruled that general and indiscriminate retention of communications “is disproportionate” and inconsistent with EU privacy directives.
The advocate general recommended limited access to the data, and only when it is essential “for the effective prevention and control of crime and the safeguarding of national security.”
The initial case was brought by Privacy International, a charity promoting the right to privacy. Referring to the ECJ’s case law, it said that the acquisition, use, retention, disclosure, storage and deletion of bulk personal data sets and bulk communications data by the U.K. security and intelligence agencies were unlawful under EU law.
The U.K.’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal referred the case to the ECJ, which held a joint hearing with two similar cases from France and another one from Belgium.
“We welcome today’s opinion from the advocate general and hope it will be persuasive to the Court,” said Caroline Wilson Palow, the Legal Director of Privacy International. “The opinion is a win for privacy. We all benefit when robust rights schemes, like the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, are applied and followed.”
The ECJ’s legal opinions aren’t legally binding, but are often followed by the court. The ECJ press service said a ruling is expected within two months.
“Should the court decide to follow the opinion of the advocate general, ‘metadata’ such as traffic and location data will remain subject to a high level of protection in the European Union, even when they are accessed for national security purposes,” said Luca Tosoni, a researcher at the Norwegian Research Center for Computers and Law. “This would require several member states — including Belgium, France, the U.K. and others — to amend their domestic legislation.”
  
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A major U.S. web infrastructure and security company will provide free support to federal election campaigns to help thwart any repeats of the 2016 effort by Russian agents to steal and leak sensitive campaign emails and documents.San Francisco-based Cloudflare said Wednesday it will be providing to eligible campaigns free access to several of its security services, including enhanced protection of firewalls, which defend systems and networks from unauthorized access. Other services include protection and mitigation of any denial-of-service attacks, which can paralyze a network by overwhelming it with data.The effort is being offered in conjunction with Defending Digital Campaigns, a nonprofit group that last year received approval from the Federal Elections Commission to provide free or discounted cybersecurity services to federal candidate committees and national party committees.To qualify, a U.S. House candidate’s campaign must have received at least $50,000 in contributions, with the minimum of $100,000 in contributions for U.S. Senate candidates. In addition, any House or Senate campaign that has qualified for the general election also will be eligible.“This is our way of providing best practices and no-brainer solutions to not only large campaigns, but also smaller, but equally important campaigns that may have limited resources,” Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said in a statement.The company said it’s already providing services to eight 2020 presidential candidates. For context, it said it defends an average of 400,000 attacks daily on U.S. election campaigns, which includes the presidential campaigns and at least 23 U.S. Senate campaigns.Since 2017, Cloudflare also has offered free security services to more than 150 state and local election websites.
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The Tass news agency reports that Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev submitted his resignation to President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.
Russian news agencies said Putin thanked Medvedev for his work. They said that Putin will name Medvedev as deputy of the presidential Security Council.
Putin asked Medvedev’s Cabinet to keep working until the new Cabinet is formed. 
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