{{A notorious Somali warlord allied to the Islamist al-Shabaab and on UN sanction lists has agreed to quit the extremists, the information ministry said at the weekend.}}<\/p>\n
Powerful arms dealer Mohamed Said Atom, who is under UN Security Council sanctions for “kidnapping, piracy and terrorism”, has been a close ally of the Al-Qaeda linked Shebab.<\/p>\n
But a government statement on Saturday quoted Atom as saying he had left the Shebab, accusing Islamist chief Ahmed Abdi Godane of working for a “foreign agenda.”<\/p>\n
“I would like to declare that as of today I have decided to resolve my religious and political issues through peaceful means and understanding,” Atom said, according to the government.<\/p>\n
Atom, as well as Shebab insurgents, have long operated from the rugged Golis mountains in the northern autonomous Somali region of Puntland, that forms the very tip of the Horn of Africa.<\/p>\n
His defection will be a blow to the Islamists, who have lost a string of towns to a 22,000-strong force of African Union troops fighting alongside the government.<\/p>\n
NV<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{A notorious Somali warlord allied to the Islamist al-Shabaab and on UN sanction lists has agreed to quit the extremists, the information ministry said at the weekend.}} Powerful arms dealer Mohamed Said Atom, who is under UN Security Council sanctions for “kidnapping, piracy and terrorism”, has been a close ally of the Al-Qaeda linked Shebab. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000052639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-14916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000052639,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14916.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14916.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14916.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14916.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14916.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14916.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000052639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14916"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=14916"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=14916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}