Somali Al-Shabaab group joins forces with pirates in Benin
A financial crisis has made the pro-ISIS
terrorist group Al-Shabaab in Somalia jon forces with pirates in the Benin, in
West Africa, to obtain the money needed to carry out more terrorist attacks.
A number of Benin’s newspapers
accused the Al-Shabaab movement of supporting the pirates after 6 Russian
sailors were abducted on Saturday along with a container ship off the coast of Benin.
In 2015, Abdul Qadir Mumin and other
600 militants of Al-Shabaab movement left the group and declared their support
to the terrorist organization ISIS.
In September 2018, Mumin said members of his
group moved to Tanzania, Angola and Benin.
Researcher Ahmed Askar, an expert on
African affairs, told THE REFERENCE he dismissed that Al-Shabaab movement
abducted the Russian sailors. “"I think this assumption was based on the
movement’s operations in East Africa as it attacks international and regional
commercial ships and this why some linked the abduction of Russian sailors in
Benin to Al-Shabaab,” he said.
“The abduction of the ship took
place in Benin’s territorial waters in the far west of Africa away from the
Al-Shabaab’s arena of operations,” he said.
“The group that split from
Al-Shabaab in 2015 might have behind the abduction,” he added.
