The leader of the Somali jihadist group of the Shebabs attacks the Djiboutian president
President Ismail Omar Guelleh here in November 2018 (illustrative image).
Eric FEFERBERG / AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
The leader of the Somali jihadist group of the Shebabs released a second message in a month on Saturday evening.
In a speech addressed to his supporters, Ahmed Diriye attacks particularly, this time, Djibouti and targets "
American and French interests
" in the country.
And he also blames the Djiboutian president.
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This is not the first time that the Shebabs have attacked Djibouti.
Their targets are the many foreign military bases - French and American, but also Italian, Japanese, Turkish and Chinese - that the country hosts.
Their last attack in Djibouti dates from 2014, when two terrorists attacked the restaurant "La Chaumière", frequented by expatriates.
They then killed a Turkish national and injured around 20 clients.
This time, in a speech translated into several languages, Ahmed Diriye also attacks Djiboutian President Ismaël Omar Guelleh, whom he accuses of having transformed his country into a "
military base
".
It must also be said that Djibouti is providing a contingent to the African Union force in Somalia, which is fighting the shebabs.
And that the country is in the electoral campaign for the presidential election of April 9, where Ismaël Omar Guelleh is a candidate for a fifth term.
This is the second speech in a month by the leader of the Shebabs, a fifty-year-old Somali from the south of the country, near the Kenyan border.
Ahmed Diriye took over as leader of the jihadist group in 2014, after his predecessor and mentor, Moktar Ali Zubeyr, was killed by an American drone.
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Somalia
Djibouti