President inaugurates summit with religious scholars to strengthen ideological fight against Al Shabaab

© Provided by News 360 Archive - Somali President Hassan Shaykh Mohamud - HASSAN BASHI / XINHUA NEWS / CONTACTOPHOTO

Somali President Hassan Shaykh Mohadmud has inaugurated a summit with religious scholars to try to strengthen efforts to tackle extremist ideology, as part of the security campaign launched by the authorities against the Al Shabaab terrorist group.

He said the meetings are "vital" and stressed that they "bring together respected Somali scholars from inside and outside the country to discuss how to deal with the fraudulent extremist ideology".

Thus, he stressed that the efforts of these people are crucial in the government's efforts against Al Shabaab and regretted that "the fraudulent narrative of the terrorists has poisoned the minds of some people." "We have to work with the scholars to free them," he explained.

Shaykh Mohamud therefore called on the 300 or so participants in the summit to work to convey a "correct" message about religion, as reported by the Somali state news agency, SONNA.

Sheikh Somou, one of the participants, stressed that the meeting "is part of religious obligations" to "safeguard the sacred religion of Islam from the 'jauarij'," a term meaning 'deviant sect' used by the government to refer to Al Shabaab.

For his part, the Somali Minister of Information, Daud Aueis Jama, stressed that "a new dawn is dawning in Somalia as the country prepares to finish the job of eliminating the threat" of the terrorist group, which maintains links with Al Qaeda.

On the military level, official sources quoted by SONNA have indicated that during the day on Monday 39 alleged members of Al Shabaab were killed in operations carried out by the army in the locality of Harardhere, located in the region of Mudug.

Somalia has in recent months stepped up offensives against Al Shabaab with the support of local clans and militias as part of a series of decisions taken by the president, who pledged on taking office to put the fight against terrorism at the center of his efforts to stabilize the African country.

Source: (EUROPA PRESS)