Mogadishu, September 28: Somalia’s main insurgent group on Monday executed two men in the capital Mogadishu, saying they had een caught spying for the United States and the African Union.
Hundreds of people watched militants from the Islamist group al- Shabaab execute the pair by firing squad in a marketplace.
A commander for al-Shabaab in Mogadishu said that the two men had been spying for the US Central Intelligence Agency and the African Union peacekeeping force in the nation in the Horn of Africa.
The US has no direct presence in Somalia, where al-Shabaab and its allies are battling to topple Western-backed president Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.
However, it has supplied arms to the government and, earlier this month, launched a raid on Somali soil, killing an al-Qaeda suspect and several al-Shabaab fighters.
Kenyan-born Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan was wanted in connection with several terrorist attacks in neighbouring Kenya.
The US says al-Shabaab has close links with al-Qaeda.
Al-Shabaab this month also killed 17 African Union peacekeepers in a suicide bombing at the force’s main base in Mogadishu.
A peacekeeping force of around 5,000 troops from Uganda and Burundi is propping up the Somali government.
Somalia has been embroiled in chaos since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and has descended further into lawlessness since early 2007, when the insurgency kicked off following an Ethiopian invasion.
More than 18,000 people have died since the insurgency began. Over half of the Somali population is now dependent on food aid due to the conflict and drought.
—–Agencies