Somalia’s minority Arab community has demanded for an independent inquiry into the killing of a UAE security official Najib Ahmed Alcazaani.
Speaking to Radio Dalsan Somali’s Yemeni community suspected foul play in to the incident.
A Somali Arab rights group Arab Somali has claimed through social media that the community was targeted on political grounds .
” We need an independent investigation into the killing of Alcazaani since we know the UAE and Somalia government relations has not been good” the Arab Somali group stated on its Facebook account.
Somali Arabs interviewed by Radio Dalsan term the killing of Alcazaani as a “political assassination”
In another separate incident on Thursday night a Somali Arab man survived an attack by gunmen at his home in Shibis a Mogadishu neighborhood mainly populated by Arabs
Alcazaani a Somali national of Yemeni descent was killed in a car bomb on Thursday. He was trained in the UAE .Two others were injured in the attack.
UAE has trained some 50 Somali Arabs who have veen deployed to secure Emirati interests in the troubled Horn of Africa country.
Emirati-Somali relations have been frosty lately.
Local authority confirmed to Radio Dalsan regarding the Thursday night Shibis incident. The District Commissioner has confirmed that the man attacked is an employee of UAE embassy in Somalia
Emirati Somali relations has been frosty lately partly as a result of rivalry between the former and Turkey.
Ankara’s interest in Somalia has grown since 2011 putting UAE interests in a quagmire.
UAE critics on the other hand has accused the country of meddling into the politics of Somalia by inviting leaders of regional administration in Dubai and Nairobi.
Turkey’s popularity among ordinary Somalis has been on the rise since the gesture of sending humanitarian assistance in the 2011 famine when the country was largely ignored by the international community.
Analyst say both Turkey and UAE have vested interests in the war ravaged country. Close relations with the Hassan Sheikh administration has seen Ankara take over the management of Mogadishu port which UAE had eyed for.
A UAE company this year took over management of Berbera Port in breakaway region of Somaliland a move that did not go well with the rest of Somalia.
