MP - Big Internal Rifts Erupted Within Al Shabaab

Mogadishu, Jul 11, 2011 (tf.sf) --Salad Ali Jelle, one of the members of Somali transitional federal parliament (TFP), has disclosed a big wrangle erupted within high ranking officials of Al shabaab.The infighting and rift in the group, which the United States designated as a terrorist, started after it announced it had lifted the ban on aid agencies and allowed to operate in the regions they control, the MP told the local press.Jelle warned the relief agencies not commence operating in Al shabaab controlled areas in easily way, saying that they could face bad consequences at the side of the security.The Somali parliamentarian said the group is not dependable and reliable, adding that the international community is needed to help the government in its fighting against Al shabaab.Last year, Al shabaab which is accused of having direct links to Al Qaeda, has banned mare than twenty international relief agencies from operating in south-central Somalia.Al shabaab, which is a powerful Islamist movement, controls large swath in southern and central Somalia and intends to impose a hard version of Islamic Shari a law.fresh row has reportedly erupted between Al-Shabaab’s Mukhtar Robow Abu Mansur and the leader of Al-Shabaab, Ahmed Godane, forcing Robow’s allied Al-Shabaab militias to move to one side of Baidoa town, in what seems to a show of military mighty.Reliable sources in Baidoa say, Godane allied Al-Shabaab militia withdrew from Robow’s strong hold town of Baidoa and fled to some parts of Lower Shabele.Eyewitnesses in the area told Bar-kulan that militia loyal to Al-Shabaab’s second in command, Abu Mansur Robow, thronged into Baidoa’s ADC centre (former TFG parliament seat), heightening tensions which are likely to escalate to confrontations between militias of the two Al-Shabaab leaders whose relation has been an all-time low.The row between the two senior most Al-Shabaab leaders is likely to cause division inside the Al-Shabaab militia that will possibly ruin Al-Shabaab’s military capability in the near future in Somalia.