Qatar’s deputy spy chief pays secret visit to Somalia

Reliable sources have told Somaliaffairs that the deputy director of Qatar’s intelligence agency, Abdallah Mohamed Mubarak Salah al-Khalifi, arrived in Mogadishu yesterday (8 September).

The highly-trained Somali Gaashaan (Shield) Force took charge of his security. Al-Khalifi, who spent last night with his apprentice, Fahad Yasin, aims in his trip to make the Somali intelligence agency an extension of its Qatari counterpart.

The deputy prime minister of Qatar, who is also the foreign minister, visited Somalia last month and pressured President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo to appoint Fahad Yasin as the director of the intelligence agency, in order to ease the execution of Qatar’s agenda in Somalia.

Qatar has deep influence with Somali security and intelligence agencies.

The latest developments come after the New York Times newspaper recently exposed cooperation between the Qatari government and Somalia’s Al-Shabaab.

Somali intelligence experts believe that Qatar has taken direct control of the Somali national intelligence agency after successfully putting Fahad Yasin at its helm.