Al Shabaab militants shoot prosecutor dead in Somalia's Puntland
Sunday, December 25, 2016
By Abdiqani Hassan and Feisal Omar
Abdikarim Hassan Firdiye: FILE PHOTO
BOSASSO Somalia Dec 25 (Reuters) - Al Shabaab Islamist militants
shot dead a military prosecutor in Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region on
Sunday, witnesses and officials said, the type of targetted killing that Al
Qaeda-allied gunmen frequently commit throughout Somalia.
Al Shabaab's insurgency aims to drive out African Union
peacekeepers, topple Somalia's Western-backed government and impose its strict
version of Islam on the Horn of Africa state.
On Sunday, Abdikarim Hassan Firdiye was shot dead as he got out of
his car outside a restaurant in Puntland's largest city, Bosasso.
Just a few days ago, a
regional official's aide was killed in a similar and targetted attack and, days
before that, al Shabaab gunmen killed the region's deputy police commander outside
a hotel.
"Two teenagers armed with pistols shot him in the head after
he got off his car," Hassan Ahmed, a waiter at the restaurant, told
Reuters.
"His bodyguards fired back but the killers had already
disappeared by then," he said.
Abdifatah Haji Aden, Chairman of Puntland's military court, said:
"We believe it was the same militants who killed the other two officials
last week that also killed him. We shall pursue them."
Al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the killing.
"Today, we killed a prosecutor who had sentenced many
teenagers - many boys and girls - to their deaths for alleged links to al
Shabaab," said Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, the group's military operations
spokesman.
The al Shabaab insurgency persists in Somalia as the country
struggles to restore order and rebuild infrastructure after more than two
decades of conflict and chaos that have left the nation in tatters.
Somalis have been voting for weeks for a new parliament and will
vote for a new president on Dec. 28. (Writing by Aaron Maasho; Editing by
Louise Ireland)
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