Al-Shabab kidnaps 100 residents in southern Somalia

MOGADISHU, Somalia - The Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabab extremist group has abducted nearly 100 people in southern Somalia on Friday after refusing to pay a forceful Zakat, Garowe Online reports.

Somalia's Southwest State deputy minister of security, Abdirisak Ali Aden said the militants took the residents, mostly shepherds as hostages from their villages in Bakool region.

Aden stressed that security and military forces will begin operations to free the kidnapped citizens from Al-Shabab hands, asking the public to cooperate and tip-off to authorities.

Al-Shabab detained the people on suspicion of spying for the Somali government and involving in the country's last parliamentary election held in the headquarters of the regional states late 2016. 

The minister stated that Al-Shabaab is using an entrenched system of taxation to fund their activities by collecting money and livestock even in areas not under their control to fund its insurgency.

As ISIS grows in Somalia, it is competing for tax collections with Al-Shabab, which remains the biggest collector and engaged in several deadly clashes in Puntland in the past.

Despite being driven out of a major ground, the group has been battling the UN-backed government in Somalia for years and carried out a string of attacks in neighboring Kenya.

GAROWE ONLINE