Six Moroccan nationals were sentenced to death by a military court in northern Somalia due to their affiliation with the Islamic State group. 

The Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Shabaab group has been waging a 17-year insurgency against the fragile nation of the Horn of Africa, and Islamic State militants are also active there.  

Six Moroccans were given the death penalty on Thursday for trying "to destroy their lives, the lives of Muslim society, the lives of the Somali people and wreak havoc in the country," according to Ali Dahir, the deputy chairman of a military court in Bossaso, Puntland state.

In the same case, the court also handed down 10-year prison terms to two citizens of Ethiopia and Somalia. 

 

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Reporters were informed by court prosecutor Mohamed Hussein that the six Moroccans had been taken into custody in Puntland and that the probe had been ongoing for almost a month. 

Even though an African Union force drove Al-Shabaab out of Somalia's capital city of Mogadishu in 2011, the organization still holds swathes of rural territory. It continues to carry out deadly attacks on civilian, political, and military targets. 

A significant regional IS leader was killed last year in a US military raid in northern Somalia that President Joe Biden had ordered.

Bilal al-Sudani handled funding for IS operations in Afghanistan as well as Africa. 

In previous counterterrorism operations, US forces have collaborated with Somali and African Union soldiers, conducting raids and drone strikes on Al-Shabaab training camps across Somalia.