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Ahmed Hassan Addow, the governor of Wadajir, one of the largest districts in Mogadishu, says the latest spate of defections from the Islamist group were aimed at humiliating the both TFG and the African Union peacekeeping mission (AMISOM) forces.
"The al-Shabaab fighters who surrendered themselves to the government forces are still working with the al-Shabaab to help direct attacks to the TFG-controlled areas," he said.
Addow says that the 'fake' al-Shabaab defectors could be fuelling more violence, assassinations and suicide attacks in the areas controlled by the government.
“They’re youths who have committed very serious crimes before and therefore they will need some form of rehabilitation from the government,” Addow told Somalia Report.
But some TFG officials down played the claims saying the al-Shabaab defectors were helping the government forces with crucial information in the fight against the insurgents.
Last month, some 11 people were killed and several others wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near the Halane camp in Wadajir district.
“The bad guys who had claimed to have defected from al-Shabaab were the masterminds behind that attack. We captured two of them fully dressed in government uniforms, but we realized the guys were released later by the same Somali security officials to whom we had handed over the suspects,” Addow claimed.
He added that the 'fake' defectors are part of a new strategy by the Islamist group to hit back following its withdrawal from the capital.
According to Kulane Ahmed, a leading Somali analyst, most of the residents in Wadajir district concur with Addow's standpoint.
“We guess that most of the former al-Shabaab fighters who are now in the Somali government are still enemies of Somalis and their allied nations,” Kulane said.
A senior security official who spoke to Somalia Report on condition of anonymity termed the allegations as baseless. Scores of al-Shabaab fighters are believed to have defected to the TFG recently.