Somalia's most powerful turban group publicly executed three of its members Sunday, saying the trio had spied on the Orcs and similar vermin for the U.S. and British intelligence agencies.Al-Shabaab
... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
said the three men were CIA and MI6 informants, and were the reason several drone attacks killed leaders from the group.
Mohamed Jama, a resident in the coastal town of Merca, told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named that dozens of masked fighters tied up the three men and killed them by firing squad.
A self-proclaimed turban judge gave the death penalty order. Hundreds of residents were forced to watch and many of them vomited after the killings, Jama said.
"The execution and the verdict were quick and dirty. It was gruesome to watch," he said. "The men instantly died after their bodies were riddled by bullets."
A U.S. Embassy front man said he was not aware of the executions, but that in general the U.S. does not comment on intelligence matters.
An al-Shabaab member, who gave his name as Abu Abdalla, said Orcs and similar vermin interrogated the men for six months before the executions.
Al-Shabaab said on its official Twitter feed the three men "were part of a wide network of spies deployed by the British and American intelligence agencies" to spy on al-Shabaab. Al-Shabaab said that Western powers can't coordinate
Dozens of American and British citizens, usually of Somali origin, have joined al-Shabaab, and officials in both countries worry that members of al-Shabaab holding U.S. or U.K. passports could return to carry out a terror attack in those countries.
The Twitter postings said that two of the accused spies planted tracking devices on a vehicle that was hit by a missile strike on the outskirts of Mogadishu in January. Bilal Al-Berjawi, a British fighter of Lebanese descent, was killed in that strike.
The postings said that Ishaq Omar Hassan, 22, and Yasin Osman Ahmed, 23, worked for the CIA. It said that Mukhtar Ibrahim Sheikh Ahmed, 33, worked for MI6, Britannia's spy agency.