Armed al-Shabab suspect is detained by Somali security forces in Mogadishu

Authorities in Somalia say that during a joint operation, they found a stash of weapons that al-Shabab extremists had hidden in a house in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia.

A statement from the country’s National Intelligence and Security Agency, or NISA, says that weapons buried by al-Shabab fighters were found during an operation in the capital city of Mogadishu on Friday.

The short statement said, “During the operation, security forces arrested a suspected al-Shabab member from the raided home in the Dharkenley district, and an investigation is underway,” but it didn’t say much about the weapons that had been found.

Even though he wasn’t allowed to talk about the operation, a NISA official told VOA on the condition of anonymity that the items found included improvised weapons, bombs, rounds of ammunition, and other explosives.

The security forces’ raid on a home in Mogadishu on Friday night was a part of the government’s continued effort to destroy al-Shabab and stop the terrorist attacks that group commits all over the nation.

Mohamed Ahmed Diriye Yabooh, the deputy mayor of Mogadishu for security and politics, said on Friday that security forces would carry out steady operations all over the city, including a house-to-house search for al-Shabab fighters hiding among civilians.

According to Mohamed Ahmed Diriye, “the people of Mogadishu should know that the security forces will commence operations in which they will check every house in the city so that the Khawariij [renegades] who are trying to live among us will no longer be able to do so.”

The deputy mayor said this just a few days after President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud called the al-Shabab extremist group “bedbugs” and asked Somalis to help his government get rid of them from the country.

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Over the past few months, security experts and community leaders in Mogadishu have been asking the government to step up security operations in the capital to stop what they call “pending al-Shabab terror strikes.”

The president of Somalia declared “total war” on extremists with ties to al-Qaida soon after being elected last year.

In the past six months, the government has claimed numerous military victories over al-Shabab, retaking towns and villages in the Hirshabelle state that had been under the extremists’ control for years. These triumphs were accomplished in cooperation with local clan fighters.

During these military operations, which were backed by its international allies, the government said that about 2,000 al-Shabab members were killed.

The VOA did not independently verify the government’s claimed death toll.

Since Mohamud was elected president, al-Shabab has kept up its assaults. Over the course of two days last week, it carried out two attacks on government forces in the Hiran region of central Somalia, killing more than 43 individuals, including top military leaders.

At least 120 people were killed in two vehicle bombings in Mogadishu in October last year.