The US President ordered during this Monday the deployment of hundreds of soldiers to Somalia to fight the jihadist group Al-Shabab. The order came after news of the election of the new PR.
The President of the United States of America (USA) ordered this Monday the deployment of hundreds of US troops to Somalia, a country from which he had withdrawn in 2021, to fight more effectively the jihadist group Al-Shabab.
Joe Biden also approved a request by the Pentagon to seek out and launch air strikes against about 12 suspected of leading Al-Shabab, an al-Qaida-affiliated terrorist group that controls rural areas of central and southern Somalia, an official from the USA to the Efe news agency.
The move is a reversal of former President Donald Trump’s decision last year to withdraw nearly 700 special operations forces that were operating in that country.
The announcement came a day after former Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who left power in 2017, was elected, defeating the incumbent head of state in a protracted vote by lawmakers.
Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who was President of Somalia between 2012 and 2017, won Sunday’s elections after the third round, which took place in the capital, Mogadishu, with a security device imposed by the authorities to prevent attacks.
The first round of voting was attended by 36 candidates, four of whom proceeded to the second round. With no candidate having won by at least two-thirds of the 328 votes, voting then went to a third-round, in which Hassan Sheikh Mohamud won by a simple majority, which in the third round is enough to choose the winner.
Members of the upper and lower legislative chambers chose the president in a secret ballot inside a tent in a hangar at the capital’s airport, which is protected by African Union peacekeeping forces.
This election, which was initially supposed to be held no later than February 2021, puts an end to more than a year of postponements and political crisis over the organization of the vote in a country torn apart by attacks by the Islamic radicals of the Al-Shabab group. and threatened by famine, after a drought of historic proportions.
For more than a year, Somalia’s international partners have been asking the authorities to complete the electoral process to focus on the country’s priorities.
Source: With Agencies
