On run from al- Shabab, former commander reportedly surrenders

Abu Mansoor Mukhtar Robow, an elusive, charismatic militant who was once a senior commander of al-Shabab in Somalia, surrendered to government forces on Sunday in a surprise move that could weaken the country’s Islamist militants.

More than any deep change of heart, Robow may have turned himself in simply to save his skin. According to Somali security officials, hard-line elements within al-Shabab — in which Robow had been a stalwart before falling out in 2013 with its leader at the time — had turned against him, wiping out many of his soldiers.

For the past several months, Robow — who once had a U.S. bounty on his head — had essentially been on the run from his own group, setting up a base in Abal Village, in southwest Somalia. In the last few days, government officials had been trying to help him and his forces escape.

“We contacted him many times, and we understood each other,” said Moalim Ahmed, the mayor of Hudur, a small town in the area where Robow operated.

Robow arrived in Mogadishu by plane on Sunday afternoon.

Somalia has suffered various degrees of bloodshed and chaos since 1991, when the central government collapsed and warlords took over.

In the mid-2000s, a grass-roots Islamist group rose up to restore order, and Robow, who is believed to be around 50 now, was one its leaders.

He always seemed more moderate than many of his comrades, and he enjoyed sitting for interviews with Western reporters and speaking of his dream to turn Somalia around.

“We don’t have a problem with Americans,” he said during a visit by this reporter to Somalia in the fall of 2006.

“Look at you. You’re here, we’ve been protecting you all week — maybe you didn’t even know it,” he said then. “We want peace; we crave it more than you could ever understand, to get out of this darkness, to stop killing each other, to stop being the laughingstock of the world.”

After Ethiopia invaded Somalia in December 2006, the Islamist group that briefly controlled Somalia went underground, and Robow with it, orchestrating hit-and-run attacks on Ethiopian forces and Somalia’s weak government.