clear

Creating new perspectives since 2009

Somalia political opposition leader’s son killed in Syria

January 15, 2018 at 1:02 pm

Faysal Ali Warabe, the leader of Somaliland’s Justice and Welfare Party [SOMALI TV OF MINNESOTA/YouTube]

Faysal Ali Warabe, the leader of Somaliland’s Justice and Welfare Party (UCID), confirmed the death of his son by airstrike in Syria today, Garowe Online reported.

At the age of 24, Hussein Faysal Ali Warabe travelled to Syria in 2013 and joined the Daesh insurgency to fight the President Bashar Al-Assad’s forces. Hussein took along his wife, who confirmed the death by sending a video clip to Hussein’s mother residing in Finland.

Hussein last contacted his family on 24 December telling his mother and siblings of his intention to leave the war in Syria and return to Finland.

“I don’t have any information about the whereabouts of my son’s family – wife and two children who were born in Syria during his life with the extremist militant group,” Faysal Ali Warabe, founder and chairman of the Justice and Welfare Party in Somaliland, said.

Read: 15 police officers killed in suicide bomber attack in Somalia

Hussein was born and raised in Finland and was known by the nom de guerre Abu Shuaib Al-Somali.

The Syrian civil war began in early 2011, when Assad’s forces cracked down on pro-democracy protests. Since then, more than 250,000 people have been killed and in excess of ten million displaced, according to the UN.

Somali nationals residing in Europe and America have joined the Daesh group and more extensively the Al-Shabaab group in Somalia which aims to dislodge the government and apply a strict version of Islamic law.

The Justice and Welfare Party, also known as the Ururka Caddaalada iyo Daryeelka (UCID), is the oldest political party in Somaliland, a self-declared republic that is internationally recognised as the autonomous region of Somalia. The part is a socialist movement seeking a democratic state based in Hargeisa.

Read: Turkey-Somalia Joint Economic Commission meeting in Ankara