Police say Abdirahman Shirwac Aw-Saciid, head of the group’s assassination squad, surrendered to authorities.
A senior ISIL (ISIS) commander in Somalia has been captured, police and state media have said, as security forces continue a weeks-long offensive against the group.
Abdirahman Shirwac Aw-Saciid, head of the group’s assassination squad, surrendered to authorities on Monday in the Cal Miskaad mountains, in the northeastern Puntland state, Somalia’s state news agency SONNA reported.
The commander’s detention came two days after the ISIL leadership in the country was targeted with United States air strikes.
In the last few years, Somalia’s ISIL branch has become an increasingly important part of the group’s worldwide network, growing in strength because of an influx of foreign fighters and improved revenue collection.
During an attack on a military base in December, the group claimed to have used two booby-trapped vehicles, which security analysts said implied the adoption of more sophisticated tactics.
On Monday, the head of police in Puntland’s Bari region, Abdikadir Jama Dirir, confirmed the capture of Aw-Saciid, known by the alias “Laahoor”, who was also in charge of extorting local businesses for the group.
Somalia’s northeastern Puntland region announced a major offensive against ISIL and a rival group, the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab, in December.
An initial assessment of Saturday’s air strikes by the US indicated many fighters were killed, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Sunday.
Hegseth added that the US air raids degraded ISIL’s ability to plan and conduct attacks.
US President Donald Trump also lauded the US action. “These killers, who we found hiding in caves, threatened the United States and our Allies. The strikes destroyed the caves they live in, and killed many terrorists without, in any way, harming civilians,” Trump said in a statement.
Until recently, ISIL’s Somalia wing was considered a minor security threat in the Horn of Africa country compared with al-Shabab, which controls swathes of southern Somalia.
Somali authorities are struggling to reassert control following more than three decades of civil war.
Leave a comment