A major conflict has erupted between top al-Shabaab officials over last week’s Mogadishu suicide attack, which killed more than 100 civilians, many of whom were students hoping to study in Turkey, a senior al-Shabaab figure said.
The source, speaking to Somalia Report on condition of anonymity, said hundreds of fighters loyal to the former leader of Hizbul Islam, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who is now a senior al-Shabaab commander, left the frontlines in response to the blast.
Aweys, Sheikh Fuad Mohamad Kalaf (Shangole) and Sheikh Mukhtar Robow Ali (Abu Mansur), were said to have been against the blast, while the leader of al-Shabaab Abu Zubeyr, spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage (Sheikh Ali Dhere) and Sheikh Abdiaziz Abu Mus’ab, were happy with the attack, believing that TFG employees, not students, were killed.
“The latest explosion created a huge conflict in the Mujahideen, it was a bizarre case for students to be killed and it was not something agreed upon,” the al-Shabaab official said. “The moment of shock was when Ali Dhere told the media that the Mujahideen carried out the attack.”
“Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys and many fighters left the front lines in Suqa-Holaha and Huriwa, and they settled in El-irfit village,” he said. “He and the al-Shabaab leaders are not on good terms; they aren’t talking to each other, so I believe that everything is over.”
Pro-government forces have been attacking Suqa-Holaha and Huriwa over the last few days, claiming gains, and residents said they saw al-Shabaab fighters abandoning their positions.
“We are not happy that foreign forces and Christian infidels are in our country, but also we don’t allow civilians to be killed without meaning; we want to fight while defending the Somali people, our fighting is based on freeing our people and we will never surrender,” the source added.
Meanwhile, Transitional Federal Government forces took control of the largest remaining base of al-Shabaab in Mogadishu. Salahudin Center was an Italian cemetery, but militia led by assassinated former al-Shabaab leader Aden Hashi Ayrow entered the center and removed the remains of those dead people in 2004.
“We are in the presidential palace of al-Shabaab; this is the base from where all the operations were created and guided; it is the place where the decision to kill and destroy the Somali people came from, but thanks to Allah now it’s in the hands of the government,” TFG official Colonel Ibrahim Yarrow told Somalia Report.
Salahudin center is located in Huriwa district, and the militias used it as a mosque, training center and administrative base. The center had a hospital, which treated their casualties, and also had big stores for food and weapons.
