27 September 2022
In a new policy supported by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s government, Somalia is endorsing the use of vigilantes to help weed out al Shabaab militia from villages.
It is an additional step to the non-violent dissuasion of al Shabaab sympathisers, including by roping in returnees into formal government.
In July, Prime Minister Hamza Barre named Mukhtar Abu Mansur as Minister for Religion. Mr Mansur is a former al Shabaab leader who fled the group and was detained under house arrest, and later freed.
