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UAE Revokes License of Somalia-Linked Sundus Exchange Over Money Laundering, Terror Financing

Mohamed Jamal — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 20:12:41 +0000

NAIROBI, Kenya (Kaab TV) – The Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates (CBUAE) has revoked the license of Sundus Exchange, removed the firm from its registry, and imposed a financial penalty of AED 10 million (approx. USD 2.72 million) over violations related to anti-money laundering (AML) and terror financing regulations.

In a statement, the CBUAE said the decision followed extensive investigations that uncovered serious failures in compliance with laws related to Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism and Illegal Organizations (AML/CFT).

“The revocation and financial sanction were imposed based on the results of examinations conducted by the CBUAE, which revealed failures and violations of the AML/CFT framework and related regulations,” the statement read.

Who is Sundus Exchange?

Sundus Exchange has been linked to the Somalia-based Haleel Electronics Group and its vast network of subsidiaries in Kenya, Uganda, Cyprus, and Dubai.

The group came under international scrutiny in March 2024, when the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned 16 entities and individuals for allegedly financing al-Shabaab, a terrorist group affiliated with al-Qaeda.

According to OFAC, this network facilitates the laundering and movement of funds for al-Shabaab, enabling its operations across East Africa.

Among the designated companies was Haleel Commodities L.L.C., also known as Haleel Group, headquartered in Dubai.

The U.S. Treasury noted that the Haleel Group’s subsidiaries include: Haleel Finance LTD, Haleel Holdings, and Haleel LTD in Cyprus, Haleel Commodities Limited in Kenya, Haleel Commodities LTD in Uganda, and Haleel Electronics in Somalia.

Al-Shabaab trainees displayed in Somalia in June 2023.

These companies were identified as financial lifelines for al-Shabaab, which relies on these networks to generate and launder over $100 million annually—funds used to finance terrorist operations and support other al-Qaeda-linked groups worldwide.

This is not the first time Sundus Exchange has been linked to illicit financial activities.

In 2018, Ugandan authorities froze bank accounts associated with Sundus Exchange and a related forex bureau in Kampala due to suspected involvement in money laundering and terrorism financing.

At the time, Kampala Associated Advocates, the firm’s legal representatives, denied the allegations.

The revocation of Sundus Exchange’s license marks a significant step by the UAE in responding to long-standing international criticism over lax financial oversight and the country’s vulnerability to illicit money flows.

The U.S. Treasury’s Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Brian E. Nelson, underscored the global effort to dismantle such networks:

“Today’s action is part of a multifaceted effort by Treasury to support the Somali government’s economic offensive against al-Shabaab—one of three pillars in their campaign to degrade this deadly terrorist group.”

Al-Shabaab remains one of the deadliest terrorist groups in Africa.

Since 2007, its attacks have killed over 3,500 African Union peacekeepers, mostly from Uganda and Burundi, and thousands of Somali civilians.

The group continues to destabilize the region, undermining governance and fueling insecurity through violence and extortion.

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Succession Plans For Iran’s Khamenei Hit Top Gear

Staff Reporter — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 13:31:27 +0000

DUBAI (KAAB TV) – The clock’s ticking for senior clerics seeking a successor to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

A three-man committee from a top clerical body, appointed by Khamenei himself two years ago to identify his replacement, has accelerated its planning in recent days since Israel attacked Iran and threatened to assassinate the veteran leader, five insiders with knowledge of the discussions told Reuters.

Khamenei, 86, is being regularly briefed on the talks, according to the Iranian sources who requested anonymity to discuss highly sensitive matters.

He has gone into hiding with his family and is being guarded by the Vali-ye Amr special forces unit of the Revolutionary Guards, a top security official said.

The ruling establishment will immediately seek to name a successor to Khamenei if he is killed, to signal stability and continuity, according to the sources who acknowledged that predicting Iran’s subsequent political trajectory was difficult.

A new leader will still be chosen for his devotion to the revolutionary precepts of the Islamic Republic’s late founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, according to one insider, who is close to Khamenei’s office and privy to succession discussions.

At the same time, the top echelon of power is also considering which candidate might present a more moderate face to ward off foreign attacks and internal revolts, the person said.

Two frontrunners have emerged in the succession discussions, the five insiders said: Khamenei’s 56-year-old son Mojtaba, long seen as a continuity choice, and a new contender, Hassan Khomeini, grandson of the father of the Islamic revolution.

Khomeini, a close ally of the reformist faction that favours the easing of social and political restrictions, nonetheless commands respect among senior clerics and the Revolutionary Guards because of his lineage, the sources added.

“I once again humbly express that this small and insignificant servant of the Iranian people stands ready to proudly be present on any front or scene you deem necessary,” the 53-year-old said in a public message of support to the supreme leader on Saturday, hours before the U.S. bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Khomeini has come into the frame as a serious candidate this month amid the conflict with Israel and America because he could represent a more conciliatory choice internationally and domestically than Mojtaba Khamenei, the five people said.

By contrast, Khamenei hews closely to his father’s hardline policies, according to the insiders who cautioned that nothing had been determined, candidates could change and the supreme leader would have the final say.

However, with the military conflict continuing, it remains unclear whether any new leader could be chosen easily or installed securely or if he could assume the level of authority enjoyed by Khamenei, they added.

Israeli strikes have also killed several of Iran’s top Revolutionary Guards commanders, potentially complicating a handover of power as the elite military force has long played a central role in enforcing the supreme leader’s rule.

Khamenei’s office and the Assembly of Experts, the clerical body from which the succession committee was drawn, were not available to comment.

TRUMP: KHAMENEI IS EASY TARGET

Planning for an eventual handover was already in the works because of Khamenei’s age and the longstanding health concerns of a leader who has dominated all aspects of Iranian politics for decades, the sources said.

The urgency of the task was underlined in September when Israel killed Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, a close ally of Khamenei’s, and the planning accelerated significantly this month following the Israeli attacks on nuclear sites, which were followed by the American attacks at the weekend.

“We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding,” U.S. President Trump warned on social media last week, calling for Tehran’s unconditional surrender. “He is an easy target.”

Khamenei hasn’t publicly expressed any preference for his successor. The sources said he had repeatedly opposed the idea of his son taking over, in succession discussions in the past, concerned about any suggestion of Iran returning to the kind of hereditary rule that ended with the ousting of the shah in 1979.

The role of Supreme Leader was created after the revolution and then enshrined in the constitution giving a top cleric ultimate authority in guiding the elected president and parliament.

Officially, the leader is named by the Assembly of Experts, made up of 88 senior clerics who are chosen through a national election in which a hardline watchdog body aligned with Khamenei must approve all the candidates.

“Whether the Islamic Republic survives or not, it will be a very different one, because the context in which it has existed has fundamentally changed,” said London-based Iranian political analyst Hossein Rassam, adding that Hassan Khomeini could fit the bill for a leader to take Iran in a new direction.

“The regime has to opt for someone who’ll facilitate slow transition.”

Hassan Khomeini’s close links to the reformist faction of Iranian politics, which pursued an ultimately unsuccessful policy of opening Iran to the outside world in the 1990s, saw hardline officials bar him from running as a member of senior clerical body the Assembly of Experts in 2016.

The succession planners are aware that Khomeini is likely to be more palatable to the Iranian population than a hardliner, the five insiders said. Last year he warned of a “crisis of rising popular dissatisfaction” among Iranians due to poverty and deprivation.

By contrast, Mojtaba Khamenei’s views echo those of his father on every major topic from cracking down on opponents to taking a hardline with foreign foes, the sources said – qualities they saw as hazardous with Iran under attack.

A mid-ranking cleric who teaches theology at a religious seminary in the city Qom, the centre of Iranian religious life, Mojtaba has never held a formal position the Islamic Republic, though exercises influence behind the scenes as the gatekeeper to his father, according to Iran watchers.

The U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Mojtaba in 2019, saying he represented the Supreme Leader in “an official capacity despite never being elected or appointed to a government position” aside from working his father’s office.

OTHER CANDIDATES FALL AWAY

Several of the candidates long seen as possible successors to Khamenei have already died.

Former presidents Hashemi Rafsanjani passed away in 2017, former judiciary chief Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi died of natural causes in 2018 and former President Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash in 2024. Another senior cleric Sadegh Amoli Larijani, has been sidelined.

Others, such as the Assembly of Experts member Ayatollah Alireza Arafi, are still in contention but have fallen behind Mojtaba Khamenei and Hassan Khomeini, the five sources said.

Beyond the most likely candidates, it’s also possible that a less prominent cleric could be chosen as a pawn of Revolutionary Guards, said Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group think-tank.

“It is possible that they would put forward a candidate that no one has ever heard of and would not really hold the same levers of power that Ayatollah Khamenei has held now for more than 30 years,” he said.

The supreme leader’s voice is powerful.

After the death of the Islamic Republic’s founder Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989, Khamenei was publicly hailed as his predecessor’s choice. Although he had already served as president, Khamenei was only a mid-ranking cleric and was initially dismissed by influential clerics as weak and an unlikely successor to his charismatic predecessor.

However, he steadily tightened his grip to become Iran’s unquestioned decision-maker, relying on the Revolutionary Guards as he outmanoeuvred rivals and crushed bouts of popular unrest.

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Iran Rules Out Nuclear Talks Under Fire, Sources Say Qatar Met Energy Majors

Staff Reporter — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 13:31:05 +0000

DUBAI (KAAB TV) – Iran said on Friday it would not discuss the future of its nuclear programme while under attack by Israel, as Europe tried to coax Tehran back into negotiations and the United States considers whether to get involved in the conflict.

A week into its campaign, Israel said it had struck dozens of military targets overnight, including missile production sites, a research body involved in nuclear weapons development in Tehran and military facilities in western and central Iran.

Iran launched a new barrage of missiles at Israel early on Friday, striking near residential apartments, office buildings and industrial facilities in the southern city of Beersheba.

After air raid warnings later on Friday, Israeli media said initial reports pointed to missile impacts in Tel Aviv, the Negev and Haifa.

World oil markets are on high alert for any strikes that hit energy facilities in Iran or elsewhere in the Gulf which affect supplies.

Qatar held crisis talks this week with energy majors after Israeli strikes on Iran’s huge gas field, which it shares with Qatar, an industry source and a diplomat in the region told Reuters.

Doha was asking firms to raise U.S., UK and European governments’ awareness of increasing risks to global gas supply, they said.

QatarEnergy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The White House said on Thursday that President Donald Trump would decide on U.S. involvement in the conflict in the next two weeks, citing the possibility of negotiations involving Iran in the near future.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said there was no room for negotiations with the U.S. “until Israeli aggression stops”.

But he was due to meet European foreign ministers in Geneva for talks at which Europe hopes to establish a path back to diplomacy over Iran’s nuclear programme.

Two diplomats said before the meeting with France, Britain, Germany and the European Union’s foreign policy chief that Araqchi would be told the U.S. is still open to direct talks.

Expectations for a breakthrough are low, diplomats say.

A senior Iranian official told Reuters Tehran was ready to discuss limitations on its uranium enrichment and that the European’s role was now more prominent because Iran is unwilling to engage with the U.S. while under fire from Israel.

But any proposal for zero enrichment – not being able to enrich uranium at all – will be rejected “especially now under Israel’s strikes”, the official said.

Israel began attacking Iran last Friday, saying its longtime enemy was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons. Iran, which says its nuclear programme is only for peaceful purposes, retaliated with missile and drone strikes on Israel.

Israel is widely assumed to possess nuclear weapons. It neither confirms nor denies this.

CIVILIANS KILLED

Israeli air attacks have killed 639 people in Iran, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, a U.S.-based human rights organisation that tracks Iran.

The dead include the military’s top echelon and nuclear scientists.

In Israel, 24 civilians have been killed in Iranian missile attacks, according to authorities.

Both sides say they are attacking military and defence-related targets.

An Iranian news website said a drone had struck an apartment in a residential building in central Tehran on Friday, but did not give details.

Israel’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear installations so far pose only limited risks of contamination, experts say.

But they warn that any attack on the nuclear power station at Bushehr could cause a nuclear disaster.

Israel says it is determined to destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities but that it wants to avoid any nuclear disaster in a region that is inhabited by tens of millions of people and produces much of the world’s oil.

The meeting in Geneva was due to start on Friday afternoon. The Swiss city is where an initial accord was struck in 2013 to curb Iran’s nuclear programme in return for sanctions being lifted. A comprehensive deal followed in 2015.

Trump pulled the U.S. out of the agreement in 2018. A new series of talks between Iran and the U.S. collapsed when Israel started attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities and ballistic capabilities on June 12.

Trump has alternated between threatening Tehran and urging it to resume nuclear talks. His special envoy to the region, Steve Witkoff, has spoken to Araqchi several times since last week, sources say.

Western and regional officials say Israel is trying to shatter the government of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Katz said he had instructed the military to intensify attacks on “symbols of the regime” in the Iranian capital Tehran, aiming to destabilise it.

Iran has arrested an “agent” of Israel’s foreign spy agency Mossad who was sending information on Iranian air defence installations to Israel using WhatsApp messaging, Iran’s state broadcaster said.

Iranian opposition groups think their time may be near, but activists involved in previous protests say they are unwilling to unleash mass unrest with their nation under attack, and Iranian authorities have cracked down hard on dissent.

Iranian state media reported rallies in several cities, describing them as rallies of “rage and victory,” and “solidarity and resistance.”

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Somalia Threatens Action Against UAE Over Somaliland

Mohamed Abdi Mohamud — Sun, 23 Feb 2025 23:11:26 +0000

MOGADISHU (Kaab TV) – Somalia has warned of potential action against the United Arab Emirates (UAE) following Somaliland President Abdirahman Irro’s high-profile invitation to the World Governments Summit in Dubai.

“Somaliland is a region within Somalia with grievances we seek to resolve through dialogue,” said Somalia’s Foreign Minister Ahmed Moallim Fiqi, reaffirming Mogadishu’s stance that Somaliland remains part of Somalia.

Earlier this month, President Irro was given a prominent platform at the Dubai summit, where he called on the international community to recognize Somaliland as an independent state.

Initially, Somalia downplayed the visit, comparing it to trips made by leaders of its federal states.

However, Foreign Minister Fiqi has now made it clear that Mogadishu will not ignore what it sees as interference in its sovereignty.

“Somalia will not tolerate interference,” he said, adding that the government is taking steps to address its relations with the UAE.

He did not specify what measures Mogadishu intends to take.

Somaliland President, Abdirahman Abdillahi Irro attends the World Governments Summit in Dubai. | PHOTO/ Pool/ Kaab TV.

Diplomatic Fallout Over Somaliland’s International Recognition Bid

Irro’s visit, his first foreign trip since taking office, has escalated diplomatic tensions between Mogadishu and Abu Dhabi.

His state-level reception in the UAE has been seen as an implicit challenge to Somalia’s territorial integrity.

During the summit, President Irro addressed representatives from over 30 governments, highlighting Somaliland’s strategic location and governance as key reasons for international recognition.

He also spoke alongside Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, Chairman and CEO of DP World, which holds a 51% stake in Somaliland’s Port of Berbera—a key infrastructure project strengthening UAE-Somaliland ties.

In his speech, Irro also referenced the potential for U.S. recognition, stating:

Somaliland President @Abdirahmanirro leveraged his platform at the World Governments Summit in Dubai on Tuesday to advocate for Somaliland’s international recognition. pic.twitter.com/yoVZgZY5t1

— Kaab TV (@KaabTV) February 12, 2025

“We have strong relations with the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries. Given our democratic governance, we hope the international community will acknowledge Somaliland’s sovereignty.”

“We hope that the United States may be the first country to recognize Somaliland,” he added, alluding to the anticipated foreign policy stance of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.

Relations between the UAE and Somalia’s federal government have been at their lowest point in recent years, with Abu Dhabi strengthening direct engagements with Somaliland and Puntland—two regions that have distanced themselves from Mogadishu’s central authority.

While Mogadishu has yet to outline specific countermeasures, its warning signals a deepening diplomatic rift over Somaliland’s growing international outreach.

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President Irro Had An Important Meeting With The Head of Business In Dubai, Sultan Al Mansoori

Staff Reporter — Sat, 15 Feb 2025 15:40:44 +0000

Dubai (KAAB TV) – Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi Irro, who was on a business trip to the United Arab Emirates, had an important meeting with the Head of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce, Sultan Al Mansoori.

The meeting was focused on strengthening economic relations and how to cooperate in the fields of trade, development and investment. These talks were analyzed on how to promote business in Somaliland and attract investors from the United Arab Emirates, especially in terms of financial infrastructure, logistics, energy, in terms of developing knowledge and empowering the Bank of Somaliland and how to facilitate direct business relations between Dubai and Somaliland.

President Cirro highlighted the strategic location of Somaliland, investment opportunities in Somaliland and how to create a business environment.

President Abdirahman Irro held meetings with the delegation of Senegal that participated in the Dubai 2025 world meeting of governments, and discussed the cooperation between the two countries in the fields of business, administration, knowledge, social development and the strengthening of relations between the two countries.

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President Irro praised the continuous support of the UAE government

Staff Reporter — Sat, 15 Feb 2025 11:08:19 +0000

Dubai (KAAB TV) – The president of Somaliland, Abdirahman Mohamed Abdillahi Irro, said that he is very happy with the continuous support of the United Arab Emirates government alongside his administration in Somaliland.

Irro praised the important role of investment in the UAE, especially DP World, which has played a strong role in strengthening the economic infrastructure by turning the port of Berbera into a strategic business center that connects Somaliland with neighboring countries.

The president said that DP world’s investment in the port of Berbera is beyond the development of the port and has achieved the establishment of the Berbera Freezone or the free trade zone as well as the trade route connecting Berbera to Ethiopia, which has boosted the economic relationship between Somaliland and Ethiopia, which has a population of around 134 million people.

Irro told the UAE news agency that if Somaliland invests in its livestock resources, it can export meat to the Gulf countries and the region as a whole, with the number of animals in Somaliland estimated at between 40 and 50 million and it exports around 4 million animals to Saudi Arabia every year during Hajj.

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