Ethiopia’s intelligence agency, the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), today (March 26th confirmed it had recently foiled a kidnap plot in Dolo Ado by a group with links to Al-Shabaab.

The group was “caught red-handed with arms as they plotted to carry out the kidnappings” the NISS said in a statement.

The plot was apparently aimed at foreigners working for the United Nations World Food Program and the United Nations Development Program.

According to the NISS the group’s aim was to seize the foreign officials and take them across the border into Somalia in a bid to extract ransoms from their institutions and their families.

The arrests followed on from earlier operations, two months ago, when 15 militants accused of being trained in neighboring Somalia by Al-Shabaab, were detained.

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* Originally published on A Week in the Horn of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – on March 29, 2013 issue, titled “The National Intelligence and Security Service foil an Al-Shabaab plot”. Items from A Week in the Horn are re-published here with a permission to do so.

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