Hiiraan Online
Monday, February 16, 2015
BOSSASO (HOL) --- A court in Puntland, a semiautonomous region northern Somalia sentenced four suspected militants to death after being convicted of fighting troops in the region, officials said on Monday.
The four convicts are parts of eight men accused of being members of the Al-Qaeda linked Al-Shabab group who receives various sentences. The four others received different jail terms including life
sentences.
Puntland which is fighting Al-Shabab fighters in the mountainous village of Galgala carried out dozens of death sentences on suspected militants charged with murders and attacks against government forces.
Security forces have been battling militants for the past three years, in a war that seems brings little progress to end the insurgency.
Al-Shabab announced it moved some of its fighters to the region, in an attempt to set up a new base in Puntland which is close to the Yemen where Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is fighting troops and Shiite Houthi militias who took over Yemen after overthrowing the government.