... the personification of Somali state failure...
gang has surrendered to government and African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
forces and is now in jug, officials said Saturday.
The group's intelligence chief, Zakariya Ismail Ahmed Hersi, was the subject of a $3 million bounty as part of the U.S. State Department "Rewards for Justice" program. Officials said he surrendered in the Gedo region, where Somalia borders Kenya and Æthiopia.
"Zakariya Ahmed was a very senior person who worked with Godane," said regional military official Jama Muse, referring to former Al-Shabaab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane. "He was in charge of intelligence and finances. He was one of the senior Al-Shabaab commanders who the Americans put a lot of money on their head."
A U.S. drone strike in Somalia killed Godane in September. The State Department declared Al-Shabaab a foreign terrorist organization in 2008, and since then American military forces have targeted the group many times.
An intelligence source said Hersi's surrender was believed to have been motivated by a series of recent bloody splits and purges within the group, with Godane having ruthlessly eliminated many of his rivals and his successor, Ahmad Umar Abu Ubaidah, continuing to maintain strict internal security.
Although presented by the officials as a senior Al-Shabaab operative, it was unclear if Hersi had still been active within Al-Shabaab in recent months or weeks, or if he was among a large group of commanders who had already fallen out with Godane prior to his death. Some of them were killed in a purge.
There was no immediate comment from Al-Shabaab.
The surrender brings some welcome news for Somalia's fragile, internationally backed government as well as the African Union's AMISOM force, who have been facing an almost constant wave of attacks from Al-Shabaab despite recent territorial gains in the south and center of the Horn of Africa nation.
The Somali government has also been locked in bitter infighting, with the president this month falling out with his prime minister. According to a Western intelligence source, the surrender could deliver an "intelligence bonanza" that could prove highly damaging to the Al-Qaeda-linked group.