Somalia offers $500 to anyone who captures Al Qaeda terrorists

Somalia is offering a $500 reward to anyone who captures members of Al Shabaab, an insurgent group with links to Al Qaeda, Reuters reported. 

"Now, consider that every Al Shabaab is just like a commodity that will earn you cash," Mogadishu Mayor Mohamud Ahmed Nur announced, according to Reuters.

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Al Shabaab lost control of Mogadishu, Somalia's capital, in August. There has since been an unprecedented build-up of African Union peacekeepers in the capital, according to the Africa Report. 

But terrorism from the Al Shabaab has continued, despite the peacekeepers' presence. Last week the group claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb in Somalia that left 12 people dead, the Guardian reported. 

Al Shabaab joined forces with Al Qaeda to gain more foreign fighters and money, USA Today reported. 

"That's one of the dangers of Al Shabaab having a safe haven in Somalia, that it can train other like-minded radicals in its tactics," an activist told USA Today.

Nur told residents that they will get cash in exchange for any "captured or killed terrorist." The bounty money will likely have high appeal in Somalia, an impoverished country that suffered a famine last year, Reuters noted.