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Ethiopia jails 8 Al-shabaab militants involved in cross border incursion

Al Shabaab soldiers sit outside a building on the streets of Dayniile district in Southern Mogadishu on March 5, 2012. (Photo: Reuters)

By Yassin Juma | 19 Apr 2024

Three others were sentenced to five years each. They are identified as Maali Gure, Abdi Tahir Kole and Aden Salad Kadye.

A Federal court in Ethiopia’s second largest city Dire Dawa on Friday sentenced eight Al-Shabaab militants involved in attacks in the country’s Somali state region near the border with Somalia, a judicial official confirmed.

In a verdict that followed two and half years of investigation by the federal police and the Somali state regional security agencies on a cross-border incursion, five members of the Somalia based Al-Qaeda linked militant group were sentenced to 11 to 12 years in prison time after courts considered the prosecution’s argument for increased punishment and the defendant’s plea for leniency.

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A Somali state judicial official who spoke to the Eastleigh Voice listed the five as Tamam Sheh Abdo aka Hamza, Jibril Rasha aka Nasredin, Hassan Ibrahim aka Hafo, Abdulhakim Hussein aka Zeid and Aman Qasim aka Salahudin.

Three others were sentenced to five years each. They are identified as Maali Gure, Abdi Tahir Kole and Aden Salad Kadye. They were sentenced for spying for Al-Shabaab inside Ethiopia ahead of planned attacks.

Ethiopia’s Somali region had been hailed as the most peaceful state since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took over office in 2018 until the June 2022 border incursion by Al-Shabaab.

In the June 2022 incursion, the group carried out attacks on the military bases of the special forces of Ethiopia police in Aato and Yeed in the Bakool region of Somalia side where they killed 17 officers.

The heavily armed militants moving in 16 vehicles went 70 kilometres deep into Ethiopia into the Afdheer Zone where they clashed with Ethiopian forces for three days killing civilians and security agents in the attack that is considered the largest by Al-Shabaab in Ethiopia.

Somali state President Mustafe Omer would later announce that Ethiopia had successfully foiled the Al-Shabaab attack and killed more than 100.

He claimed that Al-Shabaab's strategy was to move deeper west into areas with oil resources. Ten Al-Shabaab militants including those jailed on Friday were arrested in a counter military operation. Ethiopia amassed its forces along the Somalia border to avert further incursions.

In February 2024, 41 Al-Shabaab militants including military leader Hussein Ahmed aka Gap involved in the June 2022 incursion were jailed by a Federal Court in Dire Dawa.

Investigations concluded that Hussein Ahmed was the man coordinating the activities of Al-Shabaab inside Ethiopia.

He was condemned to life in prison while a junior military commander who deputized him Ibrahim Jibril and 35 others were condemned to a jail time between 7 to 12 years.