Mogadishu musician confesses to Shabaab membership

The intelligence agency NISA has outed a musician based in Mogadishu as working for the militant group Al-Shabaab affirming the group’s infiltration into various sections of the society.

In a video released by the agency, the artist, identified as Abshir Gaaraane Ahmed a band member of Banaadir Regional Arts Group confesses being an informer and finance officer of the outlawed militant group.

The artist who was arrested last week noted he was assigned to operate in Banaadir region and has been a member of the group since 2013.

A journalist, Hassan Hanafi who worked as Al-Shabaab informant between 2007 and 2011 was executed in April 2016 in Mogadishu after a military court found him guilty of belonging to the group and setting up journalists for killing by the group.

In the same year in July, a former MP, Salah Nuh Ismail who quit parliament in 2010 and declared his colleagues infidels before joining the group died in a suicide bombing in Mogadishu.

The MP, also known as Salah Badbado detonated a truck bomb near the airport area in Mogadishu killing 13 people.