Somalia PM Suspends Intelligence Chief, Prompting Rebuke from President
Voice of America
MOGADISHU, SOMALIA - Somalia's prime minister suspended the intelligence chief on Monday, prompting a public rebuke from the president and highlighting growing divisions at the heart of the political elite.
Analysts said the suspension - triggered by a dispute over investigations into an unsolved murder - pointed to a deeper power struggle that could further destabilize a country already riven by militant attacks and clan rivalries. Prime Minister Mohammed Hussein Roble said he had told Fahad Yasin, the director of Somalia's National Intelligence Service Agency (NISA), to step aside for failing to deliver a report on the murder of one of the agency's agents. Soon after, President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed issued his own statement calling the prime minister's move unconstitutional. "(Yasin) should continue being the director of NISA," the president said.FILE - President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud of Somalia attends a summit in Stansstad near Lucerne, Switzerland, June 15, 2024. FILE - Jubaland President Ahmed Mohamed Islam speaks in Kismayo, Aug. 22, 2019. FILE - Puntland President Said Abdullahi Deni speaks in Garowe, Puntland state, northeastern Somalia, Jan. 25, 2024.
FILE - A family rides past a decoration in the shape of the national flags of China and Pakistan installed along a road ahead of a visit by Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, in Lahore, Pakistan, July 30, 2023. FILE - Volunteers transport the coffins of Chinese nationals from a hospital following a suicide attack in Besham city in the Shangla district of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on March 26, 2024. FILE - Security officials work on the site of an explosion outside Karachi airport, Pakistan, Oct. 7, 2024. The attack, claimed by Pakistani Baloch separatists killed two Chinese nationals.