Al-Shabab Islamic Terrorist Group Leader Surrenders To Somalia Military

The leader of the Islamic terrorist group al-Shabab surrendered to the Somali National Army Thursday in the country’s southern town of Baidoa.

The African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) welcomed the decision by Hussein Mukhtar and urged the terrorist group’s other militants to follow suit.

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"Amisom hopes that other sons and daughters of Somalia who have been misled into terrorist acts will [emulate Mukhtar]," the mission said via Twitter. “[They should] lay down their weapons and join other Somalis in rebuilding their country.”

Al-Shabab pledged allegiance to al Qaeda in 2012. At the height of its power in 2014, the militant group reportedly had between 7,000-9,000 militants.

The group has frequently attacked Amisom troops, which is comprised of 22,000 soldiers supporting Somalia’s government in its attempts to bring peace and stability to the East African country. Al-Shabab reportedly wants to topple the government and replace it with one that imposes a stricter interpretation of Islam. It adheres to stringent regulations on women’s clothes and behavior in the rural south-central parts of Somalia it controls.

Al-Shabab is known internationally for its militants targeting foreign cargo ships in the Red Sea and for its attack on a Kenyan university in April 2015, which killed more than 147 people.

Both the Chinese and American governments have sent warships to the Red Sea to protect their sailors from being abducted by al-Shabab militants. The number of sailors kidnapped by Islamic extremists in 2016 was the highest it had been in the last decade, according to an International Maritime Bureau report in January.

The Somali government announced an amnesty offer to members of the terrorist group in 2014 after its top leader, Ahmed Godane was killed in a U.S. airstrike. Somali President Hassan Mohamud expressed that he sympathized with the fact that many al-Shabaab members joined the group for trivial reasons like needing money, saying, “ What you did does not have to dictate the rest of your life.”