The city where shopkeepers fear their CCTV could get them killed

Shop owners in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, are caught between a rock and a hard place over a government directive that they install CCTV cameras outside their businesses to intensify surveillance of Islamist insurgents who have a strong presence in the city. The businessmen say if they put up the cameras they risk being gunned down by the al-Shabab insurgents, and if they do not, they could be arrested by the police…The government issued a directive last year to shopkeepers to install CCTV cameras – at their own cost – to deter attacks by al-Shabab…The government has now ordered residents to install the cameras outside homes and apartment blocks, raising fears among many people that al-Shabab could bring its war into their homes. Since October, al-Shabab has killed four businessmen in 10 attacks related to the installation of CCTV cameras, according to a leading violence monitoring group, Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (Acled). (BBC)