Senior al-Shabab Foreign Fighter Defects in Somalia‏

One of the most senior foreign fighters with Somali militant group al-Shabab says he has defected and is now in Mogadishu with the Somali government.

Zubair al-Muhajir traveled from London to join the group in 2006.  He rose through the ranks and ultimately became a member of al-Shabab’s Shura Council of religious scholars. 

Al-Muhajir, originally from Ivory Coast, told the Somali media that he fell out with the group in 2013 when its Amniyat force arrested him and imprisoned him for three years. 

"I defected because al-Shabab, they are lying to the Muslims and to the world,” he said. “They are claiming to implement the Sharia (Islamic law) which is not true because I know from incidents where they went against the Sharia.”

He says the group uses Sharia just to “betray the people, fool them, and lie to them.”

"The reality of their actions is totally against their Sharia – they are killing innocent people and they are lying to the people.”

Investigative Dossier verified Zubair al-Muhajir’s identity and defection through Somali officials and previous al-Shabab defectors.

In 2011, al-Muhajir was head of a committee appointed by al-Shabab to mediate a bitter dispute between the late leader Ahmed Abdi Godane and three other commanders – Ibrahim al-Afghani, Mukhtar Robow Abu Mansour and Fuad Mohamed Khalaf Shongole. 

Godane rejected his mediation efforts and the dispute led to the execution of al-Afghani in June 2013.  Robow eventually defected while Shongole is still with al-Shabab. 

At the time, al-Shabab detained a number of other commanders and figures suspected of opposing Godane. Zubair al-Muhajir says he was one of the detained.