Hiiraan Online
Saturday, March 5, 2016
Mohamed Saed Atom, the commander of Galgala based militants in Puntland
MOGADISHU (HOL) – Qatar has granted a political asylum to a former rebel commander with the Al-Qaeda linked Al Shabab group who defected from the insurgent group in 2014 following months of secret talks with the government, sources said on Saturday.
Mohamed Saed Atom, the commander of Galgala based militants in Puntland, a semiautonomous state in northern Somalia has declared he gave up his alliance with the militant group, denouncing its deadly insurgency as ‘unislamic’ which he said contravened the established Islam’s guiding principles.
Sources privy with the Somali government told HOL that Mr. Atom’s Qatar asylum was part of a deal the government signed with him during months-long negotiations which saw the former arms dealer left Al Shabab.
Under the deal, Mr. Atom was supposed to indicate his standing to the deal which would then see his name removed from the UN sanctions list.
Somali said that Atom accompanied by Somali government officials had flown from Mogadishu to Doha on early Saturday.
The United Nations had slapped Mr. Atom with travel and financial sanctions for "kidnapping, piracy and terrorism.", however, he remains on the US Treasury's financial sanctions list.