'Al-Shabaab' runs amok in Kwekwe

It has emerged that the Kwekwe-based Zanu-PF terror group that goes by the sick moniker "Al-Shabaab" went berserk at the weekend, attacking party youths who attended a homecoming rally for President Robert Mugabe at Harare International Airport on his return from Japan.

Two Zanu-PF Kwekwe district officials, Pambanani Phiri and Lisbon Jaure, told the Daily News yesterday that they were attacked by a well-known Midlands

party provincial executive member and his "Al-Shabaab" gang for "selling out" the province by attending the Saturday rally - as the factional and succession wars devouring the former liberation movement continue to escalate.

"When we came back from Harare, they approached us accusing us of selling out Midlands Province. Vakati tarasika gwara reprovince saka tinofanirwa kubuda muKwekwe. (They said we had lost the province's way of doing things and as such we should leave Kwekwe).

"It was at that point that they began to assault us viciously with clenched fists. In the end, we managed to escape and report the matter to the police.

"However, when we arrived at the police station, we discovered that some of the people who had assaulted us were already there, making their own report and accusing us of beating them.

"As a result, the case was recorded as public violence, case number 104/16. We are still to get medical reports but we also made a report to the provincial chairperson, Tapiwa Matangaidze," an aggrieved Phiri said.

Matangaidze confirmed receiving the report but would not shed more light on the matter, saying this would "jeopardise police investigations".

The Midlands "Al-Shabaab", named after the Somalia-based terrorist affiliate of al-Qaeda fighting to turn the country into a fundamentalist Islamic State, has been blamed for many attacks in the troubled province.

The terror group was earlier this year accused of tormenting a number of ministers that come from the Midlands.

Sources who spoke to the Daily News then claimed that the brazen thugs were being bankrolled by a regional party bigwig (name supplied but withheld on legal advice) - who allegedly promoted himself as a key supporter of Mnangagwa's mooted presidential ambitions.

"This terror group is operating openly in the province and has in the last few days alone accosted a number of ministers, accusing them of siding with the G40 (ambitious Zanu-PF Young Turks said to be rabidly opposed to Mnangagwa succeeding President Robert Mugabe)," one of the sources said.

The ministers who had come under pressure from "Al-Shabaab" allegedly included Makhosini Hlongwane, Joram Gumbo, Chiratidzo Mabuwa, Fred Moyo, Matangaidze, Anastasia Ndlovu, Tsitsi Muzenda and Jason Machaya.

"We are told that the situation is so bad that . . . Muzenda is said to have even approached national political commissar Saviour Kasukuwere over the threats on her life by these misguided yobs," the source said.

Contacted for comment at the time, a cautious Kasukuwere would neither deny nor confirm the claims, choosing to say he needed to first investigate the matter and establish the facts before commenting substantively.

"This group must be something operating outside the party structures because we do not have a structure by the name ‘Al-Shabaab' in Zanu-PF.

"I need to go on the ground to find out how it is working," he said.

But a provincial party official said the "thuggish activities" of "Al-Shabaab" had heightened tensions between opposing factions in the Midlands, as the struggle for regional mastery in the burning governing party reaches a crescendo.