Wife of Daesh leader jailed for 8 years in Somalia over terror fund transfers

Police officers stand near the bodies of alleged Al-Shabaab militants who have been killed after the siege at the Mogadishu Municipality Headquaters in Mogadishu on January 22, 2023. (AFP/File)
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Updated 30 January 2023
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Wife of Daesh leader jailed for 8 years in Somalia over terror fund transfers

  • Fartun Abdirashid, wife of Abdiqadir Mumin, head of the Daesh group, was sentenced on Monday at a military court

MOGADISHU: A military tribunal in Somalia has sentenced the wife of the head of a terrorist organization linked to Daesh to eight years in prison for passing on information and organizing financial transactions for the group, a military official said on Monday.

Fartun Abdirashid, wife of Abdiqadir Mumin, head of the Daesh group, was sentenced on Monday at a military court.

She has been under custody since her arrest in March last year in the capital, Mogadishu.

Abdirashid was accused of frequently transferring $100 to $200 to the group’s members, the public prosecutor’s office said.

She had a working relationship with Bilal Al-Sudaani, a senior Daesh official who was killed on Wednesday in a US raid in Somalia’s northern Bari region.

Mumin, a former Al-Shabab cleric, pledged his allegiance to Daesh leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi in 2015.

Daesh holds a smaller footprint in Somalia compared to the Al-Shabab terrorist group that has carried out numerous attacks in the country.

Somalia’s forces are carrying out an offensive against Al-Shabab that has been described at the most significant in more than a decade.

The first US Cabinet member to visit Somalia since 2015 urged the world’s distracted donors to give immediate help to a country facing deadly famine, which she calls “the ultimate failure of the international community.”


Minibus crash kills 12 in northeastern Afghanistan

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Minibus crash kills 12 in northeastern Afghanistan

  • “Due to severe road damage, it veered off course and fell into a valley,” a police spokesperson said
  • “The victims of this incident include men, women, and children”

FAIZABAD, Afghanistan: At least 12 people were killed and three seriously injured when a minibus overturned and crashed into a valley in northeastern Afghanistan, local officials said on Saturday.
The bus was traveling along a road in Badakhshan province toward the provincial capital, Faizabad, but “due to severe road damage, it veered off course and fell into a valley,” a provincial police spokesperson said.
“The victims of this incident include men, women, and children... and the injured are in severe condition,” the spokesperson said.
Deadly traffic crashes are common in Afghanistan, due in part to poor roads after decades of conflict, dangerous driving and a lack of regulation.
A bus carrying migrants returning from Iran crashed in western Herat province in August last year, killing 78 people, including more than a dozen children.
The bus collided with a motorcycle and a truck, according to authorities, making it one of the deadliest crashes in years.
Another 25 people were killed in late August when a bus overturned on a highway near the capital, Kabul, “due to the driver’s negligence,” officials said.