Three Somali Men Convicted Of Al-Shabab Terror Atrocities Were Executed By Firing Squad

Three men involved in a deadly terrorist attack on the Presidential Palace in Mogadishu have been executed by a firing squad. The men, all members of al-Qaeda linked al-Shabab, had been found guilty of killing civilians and masterminding the July attack, and were sentenced to death by a Somali military court.
Pictures show the three men tied to poles shortly before they were executed by a firing squad in Mogadishu on Sunday, 3rd August. The attack on July 5th saw al-Shabab insurgents attack the presidential palace with guns and bombs while President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was away.

 The militants entered the presidential palace by placing a car bomb near the entrance to the compound, after which the militants attacked from two directions, officials said at the time. A spokesman from al-Shabab said 14 government soldiers were killed, while a security official later added that nine attackers involved in the raid had been taken out.

The images of the execution emerge as a roadside bomb detonated in a busy market in the Somali capital, killing three women, and wounding seven others. It was not immediately clear who was behind the bombing, but it is possible it was a retaliation for the execution of the three al-Shabab fighters.

The women killed in the blast were city workers, who were cleaning the streets when a bomb hidden in a rubbish pit exploded in the busy market sector known as Hodan district of Mogadishu, police said.

‘We heard a big blast, and then I could see the old mothers who were cleaning the scene lying, some of them dead and others screaming. 'The bomb was wrapped in a big, black plastic bag and then placed inside the rubbish along the Taleh street,’ Nuria Ahmed, a mother of four who lives near the scene, said.

Photo Credit: Reuters/AFP