Al-Shabaab may be serving interests of Somalia’s Farmaajo

Ahmed Adel

In a remarkable development, al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab became active across Somalia again, after the two terrorist groups launched several terrorist attacks in different parts of the country.

This comes as Somalia continues to suffer from a political crisis.

Conflict climax

Terrorist groups are escalating their attacks at the height of the conflict between outgoing President, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo, and his Prime Minister, Hussein Roble.

The conflict takes place against the backdrop of the assassination of the Somali National Intelligence and Security Agency employee, Ikram Tahlil Faleh, amid accusations to former intelligence chief, Fahd Yassin, a close associate of Farmaajo, of being implicated in her assassination.

Faleh was an employee of the Information Monitoring Department of the Somali intelligence.

Yassin was sacked because of the incident. Nonetheless, he is retaliating by encouraging his allies, namely al-Shabaab movement, to stage attacks.

The escalation aims to deflect attention from Yassin’s responsibility for Faleh’s killing. However, the crisis may invite attention to other infringements committed by the former intelligence chief, especially his suspicious relations with terrorist groups.

Yassin’s sacking is pitting the president against the prime minister who insists to open an inquiry into Faleh’s disappearance.

In response, the president issued a presidential fiat, curtailing the powers of the prime minister.

President Farmaajo justified the decision by accusing the prime minister of violating the constitution.

Before his powers were trimmed, Roble also sacked a number of army generals close to Farmaajo, increasing the president’s anger even more.

Farmaajo insists to keep the office of president for himself, even as his term had already come to an end. He also refuses to set a date for new presidential elections.