Thursday January 26, 2023
Mogadishu (HOL) - Somali cabinet council on Thursday appointed General Sulub Ahmed Firin as the country’s police commissioner, replacing the active police chief General Abdi Hassan Hijar.
General Abdi Hijar, who hailed from Puntland’ Sool region, has held the position since August 2019, while the newly appointed chief is from Jubbland.
The cabinet did not yet release a formal statement regarding the appointment, despite the state-owned media reporting announcing Hijar’s sacking.
The replacement of the police chief General Abdi Hassan Hijar comes as the security forces in Mogadishu launched operations, including a house-to-house search for al-Shabab members hidden among the civilian population.
For the past several months, security experts and community leaders in Mogadishu have been calling on government security agencies to step up their operations in the capital to avert what they called “pending al-Shabab terror attacks.”
Somalia's government says five civilians were killed on Sunday when al-Qaida-linked extremists stormed the Banadir Regional Administration headquarters in Mogadishu.
Al-Shabab often carries out attacks in Mogadishu against government and civilian targets despite the federal government declaring "total war" on the extremist group last year.