A Somali judge who jailed pirates and Islamist insurgents have been shot dead by two masked men in the semi-autonomous Puntland region, said officials and local reports on Thursday.
Police officials said that judge Mohamed Abdi Aware was shot several times in the head and chest by two masked men as he left a mosque in Bossaso, the capital of the semi-autonomous region.
The region's security minister Mohamed Said Samatar said Thursday that three suspects have been arrested in connection with the murder of Judge Abdi Aware, who recently jailed four members of Somalia's al-Shabaab Islamist militant group.
Though such targeted murders are common in south central Somalia, they are rare in the semi-autonomous Puntland region, despite being the hub of the infamous Somali pirates.
The Somali coast has been infested by piracy in recent years. More than a hundred pirate attacks have been reported in the waters off Somalia since the beginning of 2008. Generally, the crew and the vessels are returned unharmed on receiving the demanded ransom.
Pirate attacks off the Somali coast have continued despite the presence of some 40 warships-- deployed by navies of the NATO, the European Union, Russia, China, South Korea and India-- in the region to protect cargo and cruise ships against piracy in the region.
Somalia has not had a functioning government since the fall of the last government in 1991. The country's current UN-backed unity government is presently fighting powerful Islamist insurgent groups, which has claimed several thousands Somali lives and displaced hundreds of thousands more, mostly from Mogadishu.
The al-Shabaab militants, along with other allied Islamist insurgent outfits, control large areas in southern Somalia, where they enforce strict Islamic law or the Sharia. Currently, the al-Shabaab is engaged in fierce fighting with the rival Hisbul-Islam group for the control of the southern port city of Kismayo.
The two Islamist groups were united until recently in their fight against the forces of Somalia's interim government and the AU peacekeeping troops. Jointly, the two control most of the country's southern and central areas. The recent power-struggle between the two groups have raised concerns that the fighting might spread to other areas jointly controlled by them.
In May, the al-Shabaab and the Hisbul-Islam militant groups launched a joint anti-government offensive aimed at overthrowing Somalia's interim government led by President Sheikh Ahmed. The Somali government, supported by militias opposed to hard-line Islamists, responded by launching a counter offensive, and pledged to retake the towns and villages captured by the Islamist fighters.
Al-Shabaab, a military wing of the Islamist movement ousted by Ethiopian army-backed Somali forces two years ago, and several other allied militants groups have opposed past UN-sponsored reconciliation efforts in Somalia, insisting that they will negotiate with the country's UN-backed transitional government only after the AU peacekeeping mission leaves Somalia.
Presently, a 4,300-member AU force is struggling with peacekeeping efforts in Somalia after the militants turned to guerrilla warfare against the government and AU troops. So far only Uganda and Burundi have contributed troops to the AU peacekeeping force, which was initially planned with a strength of over 8,000.
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