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Al-Shabab ‘execute Somali and American spies’

Storyline:National News

Somalia’s al-Shabab fighters have executed five people publically accused of spying for the U.S intelligence services and the country’s internationally-backed government, Al-Shabab and witnesses said.

The executions by firing squad took place at a square in the town of Saakow, an al-Shabab stronghold in Somalia’s region of Middle Jubba , 320 kilometers (200 miles) west of the capital Mogadishu, On Thursday afternoon.

The names of the executed men are as following:

Ahmed Ali Ibraahim,

Abdinasir Ali Mohamed,

Abdinasir Osman Osoble,

Abdullahi Hassan Abukar,

Aden Mohamed Isack.

“One of the spies worked with the CIA and facilitated the killing of an al-Shabab commander,” a Shabab judge in the town said before the five were shot dead.

According to the judge, another one of those executed had been aiding U.S. operations in region, while the other three worked for Somalia’s security agency.

“After hearing the charges against the four and their confession, the Islamic court sentenced them to the death penalty,” the judge said.

A local witness who declined his name said hundreds of locals watched the execution.

“The men were blindfolded and shot from the back by a team of hooded gunmen,” he said.

“All of them had their hands tied behind their backs when brought on a pickup truck and they were also hooded. They were shot indiscriminately with machine guns,” said, another witness.

Las year, The United States conducted an air strike in the town, and Somali officials said al-Shabab intelligence chief Abdishakur Tahlil was killed along with two other militants.

But independent Somali analysts questioned the motives for the executions, pointing instead to divisions within al-Shabab.

“These executions could be part of persistent divisions between Somali nationalists within the movement and those advocating global jihad,”