MOGADISHU: Five inmates were killed in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu on Saturday after gunfire broke out between security forces and some prisoners who had acquired weapons and were trying to escape, state media and residents said.
The firefight between the security forces and inmates broke out in the capital’s main prison, located in the city’s south near the port.
“Somalia’s prison forces concluded an operation in which prisoners fought inside the cell. Prisoners who tried to fight were shot dead,” Somalia National TV said in a post on their Facebook account.
The five inmates who died were members of the Islamist group Al-Shabab who had been sentenced to death, it added.
It did not say whether any prisoners had escaped during the firefight.
Two security personnel at the prison, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution, told Reuters grenades and guns had been smuggled into the cell and the inmates had used them to start the firefight.
“We heard gunfire and...explosion inside the cell. The gunfire stopped after like 15 minutes. Government forces cordoned (off) the whole area,” said Abdullahi Aden, a local resident who lives near the prison.
A police spokesperson could not be reached for a comment.
Al Shabab has been fighting Somalia’s central government for nearly two decades and wants to establish its own rule based on its strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law.
Five inmates killed in attempted breakout from Somalian prison
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Five inmates killed in attempted breakout from Somalian prison
- The firefight between the security forces and inmates broke out in the capital’s main prison
- The five inmates who died were members of the Islamist group Al-Shabab who had been sentenced to death
Syria ministry says gunman who killed Americans was to be fired from security forces for ‘extremism’
Syria ministry says gunman who killed Americans was to be fired from security forces for ‘extremism’
- Syrian authorities “had decided to fire him” from the security forces before the attack for holding “extremist Islamist ideas” and had planned to do so on Sunday
DAMASCUS: Syria’s interior ministry said on Sunday that the gunman who killed three Americans in the central Palmyra region the previous day was a member of the security forces who was to have been fired for extremism.
Two US troops and a civilian interpreter died in the attack on Saturday, which the US Central Command said had been carried out by an alleged Daesh group (IS) militant who was then killed.
The Syrian authorities “had decided to fire him” from the security forces before the attack for holding “extremist Islamist ideas” and had planned to do so on Sunday, interior ministry spokesman Noureddine Al-Baba told state television.
A Syrian security official told AFP on Sunday that “11 members of the general security forces were arrested and brought in for questioning after the attack.”
The official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the gunman had belonged to the security forces “for more than 10 months and was posted to several cities before being transferred to Palmyra.”
Palmyra, home to UNESCO-listed ancient ruins, was once controlled by Daesh during the height of its territorial expansion in Syria.
The incident is the first of its kind reported since Islamist-led forces overthrew longtime Syrian ruler Bashar Assad in December last year, and rekindled the country’s ties with the United States.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the soldiers “were conducting a key leader engagement” in support of counter-terrorism operations when the attack occurred, while US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack said the ambush targeted “a joint US-Syrian government patrol.”
US President Donald Trump called the incident “a Daesh attack against the US, and Syria, in a very dangerous part of Syria, that is not fully controlled by them,” using another term for the group.
He said the three other US troops injured in the attack were “doing well.”
