A teacher and two other men have been executed by a firing squad in Somalia after being convicted of carrying out assassinations on behalf of militant Islamist group al-Shabab.

Their deaths were ordered by a military court in the capital Mogadishu.

Mohamed Haji Ahmed was a popular English teacher at a college in Mogadishu. He was also an al-Shabab assassin – known as Ilkacase, or Red Teeth – and was responsible for the killing of several senior government officials.

He was described as a “merciless killer” – and was accused of being the head of a local assassination squad run by al-Shabab in Mogadishu and the Benaadir region.

Along with two other men, he was executed by firing squad on Sunday morning.

The 27-year-old, who went by various aliases, was found guilty of killing Gen Abdullahi Mohamed Sheikh in 2017, deputy attorney general Mohamed Abdirahman Mohamud in 2019 and police Gen Mohamud Haji Alow later that year.