Turkey`s footprint spreading far and wide in Africa
(WorldNews Turkey)

When Turkish-trained security forces cracked down hard on protestors in the Somali capital of Mogadishu last month, a spotlight was turned on the growing African entanglement of a new non-African player: Turkey. Troops from the Gorgor Special Division, trained at Turkey`s TURKSOM military base in the Somali capital, were widely criticized for their violent dispersal of oppositionists protesting a disputed scheduled election. Oppositionist and former Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khairi described the Special Division`s actions as “a direct attempt to get rid of us”, while a February 19 statement from the UN Somalia Mission called for “full respect of the rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of...