Al-Shabaab commander surrenders in Somalia
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Staff Reporter Garowe Online
- Posted On 04-10-2023, 05:13PM
KISMAYO, Somalia - An Al-Shabaab commander surrendered in Somalia on Tuesday, state media reports, after 13 years expedition with the Al-Qaeda-linked group, which has been terrorizing innocent civilians and security forces in the Horn of Africa nation for the last two decades.
Mohamed Omar Mohamed, 21, defected from the militants in the Lower Jubba region, just ahead of the operation against the group, which is set for activation in the coming weeks. The Somali National Army [SNA] is gearing towards operations in Jubaland and Southwest states.
According to him, he has been serving in Al-Shabaab since 2010 when he was just 8 years old, revealing the ugly part of the group on recruitment and radicalization of minors in Somalia. Al-Shabaab militants target minors as soft targets in their propaganda, destroying the lives of hundreds of them across Somalia.
"After 13 years of being a child soldier for Al-Shabaab militants, Mohamed Omar Mohamed, 21, gave himself up to the National Armed Forces in the Lower Jubba area on Tuesday," state media reported, without giving further details about Omar, who has been in battlefront almost throughout his life.
The government of Somalia announced amnesty to defectors, noting that they would undergo counseling before being integrated into the people. Since operations against Al-Shabaab commenced last year, dozens of fighters have surrendered to the Somali National Army and the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia [ATMIS].
While visiting Djibouti, US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin III acknowledged "tremendous" progress made by the Somali National Army and their allies in Somalia in the fight against Al-Shabaab militants. The Al-Shabaab still controls large swathes of rural central and southern Somalia.
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud announced total war against the Al-Qaeda-linked group and has since requested non-ATMIS support from Kenya, Djibouti, and Ethiopia. However, the three nations are yet to dispatch the troops, necessitating the recent quest by Mogadishu to have the withdrawal of ATMIS troops technically paused.
To defeat the militants, the government has been on the battlefield in central Somalia, targeting terrorist recruitment cells. In addition, the government has also invested in tracking Al-Shabaab financiers and sources of income as a strategy to ground their operations.
GAROWE ONLINE
