Somalia’s biggest market closes its doors over ISIS extort tax

This came a day after, a business center in the market was blown up with a car bomb after its owner has refused to pay the tax to ISIS. The new threat has sent a wave of shock throughout the Bakaro market.

News Keydmedia Online
Somalia’s biggest market closes its doors over ISIS extort tax

MOGADISHU, Somalia – The biggest open-air market in Mogadishu known as Bakaro has shut its doors on Wednesday after the ISIS branch in Somalia was reportedly imposed extort tax on the local traders.

Large warehouses selling construction materials were not opened on Wednesday, with owners saying they could not afford the hundreds of thousands of dollars demanded by the pro-Islamic State group.

This came a day after, a business center in the market was blown up with a car bomb after its owner has refused to pay the tax to ISIS. The new threat has sent a wave of shock throughout the Bakaro market.

The Traders have received phone calls from ISIS threatening to bomb their businesses if they fail to pay the forceful tax which is a large sum of money we cannot afford,” a shop owner in the market, told Keydmedia English by phone.

Businesses in the capital have been paying high taxes to the Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group, Al-Shabaab, and the government, making them pay three levies to different sides each year. 

Al-Shabaab imposes the highest taxes on traders in Mogadishu, as ISIS and the government are less powerful and feared.

The businesses in other Somali towns also pay similar taxes to the terrorist groups which use the money to fund their attacks in the Horn of Africa country, according to the security experts. 

A report by the Hiraal Institute in 2020 disclosed that Al-Shabaab using intimidation collects at least $15m (£11m) a month, with more than half the amount coming from the capital, Mogadishu.

KEYDMEDIA English

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