Tag: al Shabaab

Somalia’s militant al Shabaab group said late Friday it had executed four people it accused of espionage, including one who was beheaded for allegedly giving information to the United States that led to the killing of the group’s former leader.

The Islamist group wants to topple Somalia’s Western-backed government and rule the country according to sharia law, Reuters reported.

In 2011, al Shabaab was ejected from Mogadishu by the African Union force AMISOM, and last year it was also pushed out of its southern Somalia strongholds by a combination of AMISOM and the Somali National Army.

In recent months, however, the group has stepped up attacks on AMISOM forces and conducted gun, bomb and suicide assaults on civilian targets in Mogadishu and other towns, underscoring its resilience.

According to al Shabaab’s radio, Al Andalus, the four executed men were sentenced to death on Friday afternoon “after they were proved working with (the) CIA, Kenya and Somalia.”

“They were publicly executed in a field in Bula Fulay village of Bay region,” Al Andalus said, referring to an area in southern Somalia.

Ahmed Nur, a local resident, told Reuters by phone people in the area had been asked by al Shabaab to gather near its camp.

“We thought there was a lecture, however we witnessed three men shot dead and another beheaded in front of us,” he said

Somalia al Shabaab group said its fighters rammed a suicide car bomb into a base of Ethiopian troops serving with the African Union’s AMISOM force and killed 43 soldiers on Thursday.

Residents near the base in the central town of Haglan said they heard a huge explosion and then heavy exchanges of gunfire shortly before dawn.

The gun duel lasted at least an hour after the initial blast, they told Reuters.

There was no immediate comment from the AU force, made up of African nations supporting Somalia’s Western-backed government in its fight against the al Qaeda-linked militants.

AMISOM usually says it is up to troop-contributing countries to announce casualties.

In the past, casualty figures cited by al Shabaab have been much higher than official numbers.

“Our fighters stormed the Halgan base of AMISOM,” al Shabaab’s military operations spokesman, Abdiasis Abu Musab told Reuters.

He said the militants used a suicide car bomb and exchanged fire with Ethiopian troops there.

He said “several” al Shabaab fighters died, but did not give a number.

Gunmen suspected to be members of Somalia’s Islamist al Shabaab group shot and killed a female journalist working for state-run radio on Sunday, police said.

Major Nur Ali, a police officer, said Sagal Salad worked for Radio Mogadishu.

“Three men armed with pistols killed (her). We heard gunfire and we rushed to the scene, the gunmen had already escaped,” Ali told Reuters.

“She was rushed to hospital but she died on the way. They killed her near a college campus where she studied. We believe al Shabaab is behind her killing.”

Al Shabaab was not immediately reachable for comment.

A female reporter who also worked for Radio Mogadishu was killed in a car blast late last year.

Two men convicted of the killing were executed in April.

Also in April, a government firing squad executed a former media officer working for al Shabaab for ordering the death of six journalists.

Gunmen have stormed a hotel in the centre of the Somali capital Mogadishu, with reports of at least 10 dead.

The attackers entered the Ambassador Hotel on Maka al-Mukarama Street after setting off a car bomb at the gates outside, witnesses told the BBC.

Politicians and government officials were believed to be staying at the hotel.

The al-Shabab militant group was quick to say it was behind the attack, which intelligence officials said is now over.

The BBC reports that the explosion was one of the largest to hit the city and the scale of destruction was huge.

There are reports that about 40 people have been wounded.

The head of the city’s Amiin ambulance service told the BBC the main Medina hospital is overcrowded.

“I was the first person to reach scene. The damage was enormous,” Dr. Abdulkadir Andirahman Haji Aden said.

“My brother and his son were among those injured. We are now in Medina hospital and it is overcrowded with wounded people. I have never seen something like this,” he added.

A military court in Somalia has sentenced two men to life in prison for masterminding a bomb attack on a Daallo Airlines passenger plane in February.

Eight other people, including a woman, were sentenced to between six months and four years in prison, the BBC reports.

The blast, shortly after take-off from Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, killed the bomber and left a hole in the plane’s fuselage.

Somalia’s militant Islamist group al-Shabab said it carried out the attack.

However, it admitted at the time that it had failed in its attempt to bring down the plane.

The verdicts were the first in connection with the blast.

A former security official at the main airport in Mogadishu, Abdiwali Mahmud Maow, was given the life sentence, along with Arais Hashi Abdi, who was tried in absentia as he had evaded arrest.

The two were convicted for being members of al-Shabab.

Five men were jailed for life in Uganda on Friday for their role in two al Shabaab bombings that killed 76 people among crowds watching the World Cup soccer final in July 2010.

The attacks, at a popular restaurant and a sports field where fans had gathered to watch the Spain vs Netherlands final on large screens, showed the ability of the Islamist militant group to strike far beyond the borders of its native Somalia, Reuters reported.

It said the blasts were to avenge killings of Somalis by Ugandan troops, who were deployed to the Horn of Africa nation in 2007 as part of an African Union peacekeeping force to help defeat al Shabaab.

High Court judge, Alphonse Owiny Dollo, said it was likely most of those killed and maimed were opposed to the deployment by the Uganda People’s Defence Force.

“The hundreds of victims of these wanton acts had nothing to do with the decision to deploy the UPDF in Somalia,” he said. “And yet because of these senseless and indiscriminate attacks, they are either dead or permanently living with the scars of these deeds.”

The judge said while the crime was repugnant, he did not believe a death sentence would “give closure to the indelible pain that society has suffered.”

Two other men found guilty of abetting the attacks were each given 50 years in jail.

A third will do community service for a year because he had stayed in remand longer than the three years he would have served for being an accomplice, the court ruled.