Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on Thursday called on ordinary people to help track down members of the extremist group al-Shabaab, which he described as “bugs”.
Mohamud addressed a large crowd at a government-organized rally against al-Qaeda-linked militants held at a stadium in the capital Mogadishu amid tight security.
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“I call upon you, the people of Mogadishu, the Kharijites (apostates) are among you… so flush them out. They’re in your houses, they’re your neighbors, in cars that drive past you,” he said.
“I want us to commit today to rinsing them out, they’re like bugs under our clothes,” he added, as protesters waved flags and placards with anti-al-Shabaab messages.
Al-Shabaab has been waging a bloody insurgency against the weak, internationally-backed central government for 15 years, launching attacks both in Somalia and in neighboring countries that have deployed troops to help fight the militants.
“People are fed up with massacres, killings and all kinds of misdeeds and they are now saying to al-Shabaab, ‘Enough is enough,'” Mohamud said.
The president declared “no-holds-barred” war on extremist fighters shortly after taking office in May last year.
In recent months, the army and local clan militias have retaken tracts of land in the center of the country in an operation backed by US airstrikes and an African Union force.
But the insurgents have frequently retaliated with bloody attacks, underscoring their ability to strike at the heart of Somali cities and military installations despite the offensive.
Although al-Shabaab was driven out of Mogadishu and other major urban centers more than a decade ago, it remains entrenched in parts of rural central and southern Somalia.
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