Al-Shabaab Warns Britain Against Sending Troops to Somalia

Islamist al-Shabaab gunmen ambushed and killed the nephew of Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud, Somalia’s president, in Mogadishu on Wednesday, police and the rebels said.

Al Shabaab’s military operation spokesman, Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, said the group targeted Osman because he was “a very important official at the presidential palace”.

United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron said last month as many as 70 personnel would be deployed in Somalia to provide engineering, training and logistical support for African Union efforts to counter the militant threat.

Al-Shabab was forced out of Mogadishu by African Union (AU) and government forces in August 2011 and left the vital port of Kismayo in September 2012.

The statement branded Britain “an enemy to Muslims” and accused the country of trying to colonise Somalia.

Somalia-based terror group Al-Shabaab has threatened it will greet British troops with “fire” and warned it will display beheaded corpses of British soldiers on the internet.

“Our ancestors fought the British colonialists before and we will take the same path. They will be welcomed with bullets…God willing their beheaded bodies strewn around the streets will be shown (on jihadist websites)”.

AMISOM, the African Union’s force in Somalia, has been battling Al-Shabaab alongside the Somali army, pushing the rebels into increasingly smaller pockets of territory.

Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for attack, claiming that they had killed a nephew of the president and another government official. The country is grappling to restore peace after decades of violence following the 1991 ouster of dictator Siad Barre.