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Dec 9, 2025
Somali TikToker deported from US for spy kidnapping may be innocent
RTL Today
Social media star Mahad Maxamud returned to a hero's welcome in Somalia last month
A Somali migrant deported from the United States and labelled an "illegal scumbag" by the White House for aiding the kidnapping of two French spies in Mogadishu may have been wrongly accused.
Mahad Maxamud returned to a hero's welcome in Somalia last month, not least because he is a hugely popular social media star whose online rants have earned him more than 450,000 TikTok followers.
US authorities linked him to the long-running insurgent group Al-Shabaab, which has ties to Al-Qaeda.
But some in Somalia suspect he was the victim of online rivals, thanks to the often aggressive and ethnically tinged roasting contests that occur between Somali TikTokers.
AFP spent weeks investigating Maxamud and gained testimony from Somali and French intelligence sources, who cast doubt on the accusations.
Somali migrants have been a focus of the current US administration, with President Donald Trump unleashing a tirade against the community last week, calling them "garbage" who should "go back to where they came from".
Maxamud was detained by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Minnesota in May.
In a post on X on October 24, the White House described him as a "criminal illegal scumbag" who was "involved in the kidnapping of French officials from Sahafi Hotel, Mogadishu".
That was a reference to the abduction in July 2009 of Marc Aubriere and Denis Allex, sent by the French government to train Somali troops under the guise of being journalists, at a time when Al-Shabaab controlled most of the capital.
Aubriere later escaped and returned to France, but Allex was executed during a botched rescue attempt by French forces more than three years after his abduction.
Two Somali security agents told AFP they had never previously linked Maxamud to the kidnapping.
"We don't have information directly connecting him to the abductions," said one agent.
In France, where the DGSE intelli
