A military court in northern Somalia has sentenced six Moroccan nationals to death over their links to the Islamic State group.
The Horn of Africa country has been facing a 17-year insurgency led by the al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab group, and militants from the Islamic State group also operate in the country.
On Thursday, Ali Dahir, vice-president of the military court of Bossaso, in the state of Puntland, sentenced six Moroccans to death for trying to
“destroy their lives, that of Muslim society, that of the Somali people and to sow chaos in the country
.
The court also sentenced an Ethiopian national and a Somali citizen to 10 years in prison in connection with the same case.
American military raids
Prosecutor Mohamed Hussein told reporters that the six Moroccans had been arrested in Puntland and that the investigation had been ongoing for almost a month.
Al-Shabaab was driven out of Mogadishu, the Somali capital, in 2011 by an African Union force, but the group still controls large swathes of the countryside and continues to carry out deadly strikes against civilian, political and military targets.
Last year, a U.S. military raid in northern Somalia, ordered by President Joe Biden, killed a key ISIS leader in the region.
Bilal al-Sudani was responsible for financing IS operations, not only in Africa but also in Afghanistan.
U.S. forces have in the past partnered with African Union soldiers and Somali troops in counterterrorism operations and have carried out raids and drone strikes on Al-Shabaab training camps across Somalia.