Suspected Hezbal Islam gunmen have allegedly shot and killed a high-ranking Al Shabab commander Sheikh Daood Ali Hassan in the key port town of Kismayo, about 500 kilometers south of the Somali capital Mogadishu, officials confirm here Saturday.
“The slain man, who was the group’s commander in the city of Dhobley near the borer with Kenya, has been in Kismayo for the past several days and was due to return to Dhobley early on Saturday but was killed last night,” Sheikh Abokar Ali Aden, Al -Shaba’s governor of southern Juba regions told reporters Saturday.
“What I can confirm is that our brother Sheikh Daood has been killed by notorious assailants and investigations are under way to find out who was exactly behind his killing,” the governor said, adding that some suspects have been arrested a little while after the killing.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the assassination, but speculation is that another Islamist group, Hezbal Islam, is suspected to have carried out the killing in retaliation for the assassination of Sheikh Barre Ali Barre, the second in command of the group who was killed in Mogadishu’s Bakara Market earlier this month.
Both Islamist insurgent groups were allied in fighting against the Somali government but later fell apart and started fighting for the control of the key port town of Kismayo in October last year, as the city later fell into the hands of Shabab militants after a long combat in October last year.
In May 2009, both Islamist opposition groups launched a big offensive against the Somali government in a bid to topple it, but African Union peacekeepers in Mogadishu have been protecting the government since then.
Source African Press Agency
African News from NetNewsPublisher.com
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