Hiiraan Online
Friday, March 4, 2016
Ali Mohamed Waranade, Somaliland’s interior minister
MOGADISHU (HOL) – Security forces in the breakaway northern Somalia republic of Somaliland arrested eight people in connection with the murder of a senior army commander who was killed in a remote village in the region last week, official said Friday.
Col. Abdirizak Yusuf Aseyr, the commander of Sahil police was killed in an ambush in the eastern part of the region, in a rare incident in the traditionally stable enclave which had escaped decades of conflict that had largely engulfed south and central Somalia.
Ali Mohamed Waranade, Somaliland’s interior minister said that security forces arrested eight suspects out of 11 gunmen behind the attack in which the commander was killed.
“They were arrested in a special operation in the mountainous area in the east of Berbera,” he said in an interview with Voice of America’s Somali Service.
Mr. Waranade said that one of the suspects arrested during the operation had wounds, allegedly suffered during the attack on the deceased commander’s convoy.
Violence is not common in Somaliland which enjoyed a relative stability for decades.
Somaliland which employs its own government and army has declared a unilateral independence from the rest of Somalia in 1991, however, no country has so far recognized it as an independent state.