Somalia: We can’t give Robow weapons and ask him to fight, says president

MOGADISHU, Somalia - President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has backed his Religious Affairs and Endowment Minister Mukhtar Robow in the ongoing crackdown against Al-Shabaab militants, noting that the former Al-Shabaab deputy leader is "useful" in helping the country successfully neutralize the militants.

Robow, who ditched Al-Shabaab and subsequently made an attempt to join mainstream politics, was picked as a minister in Hassan Sheikh's administration, in what caught many pundits by surprise in Somalia. At that time, he was under house detention.

For months, Hassan Sheikh has entrusted the Religious Affairs and Endowment ministry to host clerics and find a common solution to changing the ideological course of the Al-Shabaab. However, the government would, later on, ban the visitation of clerics to Al-Shabaab strongholds.

In an interview with the Guardian, Mohamud said “we can’t give him weapons and ask him to fight, but he can be useful,” referring to the former Al-Shabaab defector, stressing that the man can convince other Al-Shabaab officials to defect.

“We want to show the Al-Shabaab leadership that if they surrender they will not be humiliated, they will not be mistreated,” he added.

Robow has already established communication channels with some Al-Shabaab leaders who he is pushing for their defection from the group. Former President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo did not have trust in Mukhtar Robow, whom he blocked from running for Southwest presidency.

Robow, who recently invited the Guardian into his residence in Mogadishu, at the request of President Mohamud, insists that he has long had ideological differences with Al-Shabaab. “I disagreed with their culture and their morals,” he says. “I’m a human being, not a monster.”

The media-shy former Al-Shabaab commander, whose tone was, by turns, angry and indignant said Al-Shabaab killed members of his family, including his son, in fighting. The family has been a target of Al-Shabaab ever since he renounced violent extremism.

Al-Shabaab are fighting to topple the fragile UN-backed federal government of Somalia for over 15 years and they have in recent weeks lost ground in some parts of rural central and southern Somalia according to the government, which has upscaled a crackdown against the group.

GAROWE ONLINE