Somalia Premier Suspends Intelligence Chief

Somalia’s prime minister suspended the intelligence chief on Monday, prompting a public rebuke from the president and highlighting growing divisions at the heart of the political elite.

Analysts said the suspension – triggered by a dispute over investigations into an unsolved murder – pointed to a deeper power struggle that could further destabilize a country already riven by militant attacks and clan rivalries.

Prime Minister Mohammed Hussein Roble said he had told Fahad Yasin, the director of Somalia’s National Intelligence Service Agency (NISA), to step aside for failing to deliver a report on the murder of one of the agency’s agents.

Soon after, President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed issued his own statement calling the prime minister’s move unconstitutional. “(Yasin) should continue being the director of NISA,”.

Somalia’s police chief called an emergency security meeting on Monday, officers told Reuters on condition of anonymity without going into further details.

The immediate cause for the dispute – the murder of the young female agent, Ikran Tahlil Farah, who worked in the cybersecurity department and went missing in late June – has been a highly contentious issue.

The government last week blamed the Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab for her death, prompting scores of angry posts on social media from people who said the agency itself had been involved. Al-Shabaab took the unusual step of denying any involvement.

In April, factions of the security forces seized positions in the capital, angered by moves to extend the president’s four-year term by another two years, which the opposition said was part of a power grab.

That confrontation was resolved when the president put the prime minister in charge of security and organizing delayed indirect elections.