Six Islamic State, IS, fighters from Morocco have been sentenced to death by a military court in Somalia.
If their appeal, which must be filed within one month, is unsuccessful, they will face execution by a firing squad.
“They came to Somalia to support Isis [IS} and destroy and shed blood,” the court’s deputy chairman, Col Ali Ibrahim Osman, told newsmen.
This marks the first instance in which authorities in Puntland have pressed charges and handed down sentences to foreigners for affiliating with IS.
In addition to the death sentences, an Ethiopian and a Somali were each sentenced to 10 years in prison, while a Somali defendant was released due to insufficient evidence.
The military operation leading to these arrests unfolded in the Cal-Miskaat mountains, situated east of Bosaso, the commercial hub of Puntland. These mountains serve as a stronghold for Islamic State, which maintains a base in the region.
The Somali branch of IS emerged in 2015 when a faction of defectors split from the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabab group, the largest jihadist organisation in Somalia.
The militants’ activities in the Cal-Miskaat mountains drew attention to the region, characterised by small-scale, sporadic attacks and the extortion of locals, as outlined by the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Somalia has a long-standing practice of imposing the death penalty for offences linked to terrorism, a measure criticised by various local and international human rights groups, including The Coalition of Somali Human Rights Defenders.
In a recent report, these groups revealed that at least 55 executions were carried out in Somalia the previous year, with 23 of them executed by military authorities in Puntland and the capital, Mogadishu
