Tag Archives: Somalia

Survey: Somalia heads terrorism risk, Britain tops Western terror threat list

by Claudia
Imam Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen October 2008, ta...

Imam Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, Oct 2008. Image via Wikipedia

Somalia, that paradise: not only they are suffering the worst drought in decades, while Islamists forbid samosas -a kind of food- and kill NGO workers and burn food and medicines, but they are actually heading the terrorism risk’s list.

South Sudan, on the other hand, is going to have a difficult start: the North has begun a blockade against it in reprisal for being independent.

Somalia is most at risk from terrorist attack, followed by Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan and the new nation of South Sudan, according to a ranking by global analysts Maplecroft.

The consultancy’s latest Terrorism Risk Index also assesses threats to be rising in Yemen, Iran, Uganda, Libya, Egypt and Nigeria.

A Maplecroft statement said increased dangers seen in Yemen and Uganda were caused by al Qaeda-associated violence, those in Iran stemmed from attacks by Sunni Muslim rebel group Jundollah and those in Egypt and Libya originated in terrorist and criminal attempts to exploit Arab Spring political unrest.

Nigeria is beset by militant raids in the Niger Delta, by sectarian violence and by radical Islamist attacks in the north.The top four rankings were unchanged from Maplecroft’s previous survey issued in November 2010 but South Sudan, which came into being last month on secession for the north, replaced the Palestinian Territories at number five due to the high average number of people killed per attack in violence there.

via Somalia heads terrorism risk, South Sudan in top 5: survey – Yahoo! News.

And Britain tops Western terror threat list:

BRITS are at greater risk of a terrorist attack than any other Western nation, it was claimed today.

Renewed tensions in Northern Ireland have sent the UK up the list of vulnerable states.

It now sits higher than France, Spain, China, Sri Lanka — and even the United States, according to the Terrorism Risk Index compiled by security analysts Maplecroft.

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Horn of Africa: Pope Benedict XVI makes appeal for people suffering famine

by Claudia
Pope Benedict XVI celebrates the Eucharist, a ...

Image via Wikipedia

Will we see any important Muslim personality appealing about the worst famine in decades?

Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday appealed for those suffering in the Horn of Africa from the dramatic consequences of famine, aggravated by war and the absence of solid institutions.

Addressing three thousand people in the courtyard of the Papal Summer Residence in Castel Gandolfo, he said Jesus confronts us with our responsibility: which is to do everything in our power to bring assistance to those who suffer from hunger and thirst.

He was commenting on the Sunday Gospel passage, which was about the multiplication of the loaves and fishes.

“In today’s Gospel passage, we hear of the multiplication of loaves and fishes, which in a wonderful way prefigured the institution of the Eucharist. We pray that Christians, scattered like grain throughout the world, will be united in offering the one bread and the one cup, and so become one body, one spirit in Christ,” said Pope Benedict.

via Pope Benedict XVI makes appeal for Horn of Africa.

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Somalia: Christians Living in Fear as Country’s Crises Deepens

by Claudia
Ruins of Qa’ableh, Somalia.

Ruins of Qa’ableh, Somalia. Image via Wikipedia

It has been widely reported in the media that as a result of the famine in East Africa, Somalia is facing ‘not only a humanitarian crises’ but also ‘a human rights crises and a children’s crises.

This indication is contained in a report by the Prayer Communication team of Open Doors UK a United Kingdom based Christian humanitarian organization (www.opendoorsuk.org) adding that Islamist insurgent, Al-Shabaab, the main armed group opposed to the government in Somalia, is reported to be systematically recruiting children under 15 as child soldiers.

It noted that the group is denying the children access to education, and carrying out indiscriminate attacks in densely populated areas, resulting in the deaths of civilian adults and children.

Quoting Amnesty International and British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), it observed that two regions of southern Somalia were officially declared to be in a state of famine by the United Nations (UN) earlier this week, amid the worst drought to hit the region for 60 years.

Open Doors said that the crisis is being exacerbated by Al-Shabaab’s refusal to allow foreign aid organizations access to the parts of the country under their control. An Al-Shabaab spokesman has accused aid groups of being political, saying that UN reports of famine are ‘sheer propaganda.‘

According to it, Al-Shabaab currently controls the majority of southern Somalia and targets Christians, who are then routinely killed. Kidnapping and killings of NGO workers have also been reported.

via Somalia: Christians Living in Fear as Country’s Crises Deepens.

h/t: persecution.org.

The (real) situation in the country is so grave that people who thought there was an “economic miracle” in Somalia, due to the lack of government, are considering they were wrong:

If telecommunications’ business has prospered (ejem) in Somalia is not because “all” the country is showing an upward trend, but because there is a powerful coastal minority, formed by the famous pirates and their protector clans, who can afford to buy cell or satellite phones . The majority of the population, many million people, can only communicate by smoke signals, if they can find a dead branch somewhere. The real data to compare, if you want to show the relative strength of the country, are not the costs related to individual people, but of community investments. And there the picture is bleak: no airport, no harbor, no fucking kilometer of paved road, not a single unpaid water treatment station by the United Nations, no school or university (the illiteracy rate exceeds 80%) zero infrastructure of any kind since the days of Methuselah. We can’t say in any way that they go relatively well, even if we don’t consider the famine.

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Somalia: Islamists kill NGO workers and burn food and medicines

by Claudia
Logo of the UN World Food Programme in SVG format

Image via Wikipedia

According to the Monitoring Group, some UN agencies working in Somalia suspect that several local organizations which  they have funded and through which they have distributed aid, were giving money to al Shabaab, payments that the Islamist group called “taxes” .

The report details several cases where members of al Shabaab have asked for bribes to the UN and aid agencies in exchange for allowing them to work in rebel areas and in some cases, burning food and medicine when they didn’t get the required money.

Al Shabaab promised this July to lift the prohibition on distributing food aid, imposed in 2010, but then said that it will maintain restrictions on the World Food Programme (WFP) the UN and key NGOs.

The report of the observation that Al Shabaab commander gave a speech in late 2010 in which he warned that the Somalis do not accept foreign aid. “You can eat whatever you want except the food received as aid,” he said.

The WFP has said that can not access more than 2 million Somalis at risk of starvation in areas controlled by the Islamist militia. Although try to reach these areas over the next week, said that if this fails will be raised as a last resort, throw the food out of airplanes.

…According to the report, commanders of the insurgent group asked humanitarian organizations for an initial payment of $ 10,000 to allow them access to their controlled territory and then make them pay another $ 10,000  to register themselves (as “NGOs”) and another $ 6,000 every six months.

The rebels are also demanding the payment of 20 percent of the value of all foods and medicines that pass through their areas and impose a 10 percent tax on all vehicles.

via Los islamistas de Al Shabaab matan a trabajadores de ONGS y prenden fuego a alimentos y medicinas.

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Somalia: Extremist Group Bans Samosas

by Claudia
Samosas

Samosas. Image via Wikipedia

A powerful Muslim extremist group in Somalia banned samosas in the country because their three sides may remind people of the Christian Holy Trinity.

Members of Al-Shabaab recently boarded trucks with loudspeakers and announced that the popular pastries are banned in the country, UPI reported.

The group did not fully explain its decision to ban the snack that is often filled with minced meats and vegetables, but witnesses told a local paper that their ubiquitous three-cornered shape may invoke thoughts on the Holy Trinity, according to the report.

The Islamic militant group, which controls wide swaths of the country, bans music and watching sports on TV.

via Somali Extremist Group Bans Samosas in Country – FoxNews.com.

Meanwhile, I read this question in the internet:

Somalia is an overwhelming Islamic country with more of its 98% inhabitants being Muslims. Rich Muslim brothers, owners of oil, which just built the Great Mosque of Dubai at a cost of approximately $ 600 million and where only the carpet in the main hall has a value of approximately $ 6.5 million, those who bathe in tubs of gold, and squander their money all over the world, can not help their poorer brethren?

Is anybody reporting about that permanent civil war between Islamic factions? Is anybody reporting that the same radical Islamic groups deny the famine and also prevent the delivery of humanitarian aid to the population?

I will answer this: No, they are just waiting for Christian countries to provide for their “poor Muslim brothers”, who are Black. And so inferior. The same that happened with Black Muslims in Sudan. You can read Human Trafficking and Modern-day Slavery: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. No one is speaking about this. Because they own oil. Yes, that same oil that the rest use for everything in their/our lifes.

Meanwhile, they continue pushing for what they are really interested in: the UN anti-blasphemy (really anti-criticism of Islam) resolution, although Pakistani Christian Minister Shabaz Bhatti’s assasination has made them more cautious.

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Horn of Africa: UNHCRH calls for aid to Somalia in worst food crisis

by Claudia
Coat of Arms of Somalia

Image via Wikipedia

The United Nations Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Somalia, Shamsul Bari, today urged the international community to step up efforts and take immediate concerted measures to address the most severe food crisis in the world today in Somalia.

His call was supported by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, who declared that ten million people in northern Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea and South Sudan are at immediate risk of starvation because of the worst regional drought in 60 years.

“I am appalled by the plight of the Somali people who are experiencing the most acute humanitarian tragedy in the world today as a result of the most severe drought in 10 years,” Bari said. “Drastically increasing food prices and continuing conflict and insecurity have caused a huge displacement of the population, with thousands of Somalis fleeing to Ethiopia, Kenya, and Djibouti every day.”

Bari, who last week visited Mogadishu and Nairobi, including the Dadaab Refugee Camps in the Garissa District, said the situation was markedly worse than in March 2011, when he had expressed concerns over the slow response of the humanitarian community to the situation.

“Only 50 per cent of the humanitarian community appeal for US $ 530 million has been funded to cover humanitarian needs of some 2.85 million people or one-third of the Somali population,” Bari said.

via DisplayNews.

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Horn of Africa: 400,000 crammed into refugee camp fleeing worst regional drought in six decades

by Claudia

We’ll see what effects this has, on Islamism and Islamic terrorism:

Original caption states "An outdoor schoo...

An outdoor school at Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya. Image via Wikipedia

Fleeing the worst regional drought in six decades, some 400,000 people have left Somalia and other nations of the Horn of Africa for a refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya. Thousands are now arriving every day at the camp, whose capacity is only 90,000.

“More than two million babies in the Horn of Africa are malnourished and need urgent assistance to save their lives, L’Osservatore Romano reports. “A half a million of these babies are in imminent danger for survival, with long-term consequences for their physical and mental development. More generally, it is estimated that ten million people need immediate humanitarian assistance, more than double the number that UN agencies are currently able to assist.”

via Catholic Culture : Latest Headlines : ‘The worst disaster’: 400,000 crammed into refugee camp.

Terror: Kenyans Recruited for Al-Shabaab

by Claudia
An aerial of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

Image via Wikipedia

Somali al-Qaida affiliate al-Shabaab is recruiting scores of militants from Kenya, reports Nairobi TV (NTV). The media organization’s recent undercover investigation also indicates the terrorist group has infiltrated the Kenyan military.

Al-Shabaab has waged war against Sheikh Sherif Ahmed’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Somalia since 2006, conducting suicide bombings and guerrilla assaults against the government and its foreign allies in Somalia. Recent offensives by the Somali government have carved out a new territory from the terrorist organization’s holdings.

The undercover investigation also indicated some Kenyan military personnel were supporting al-Shabaab. Corporal Hussein Abdullahi Athan, a member of the Kenyan military, actively recruits for the terrorist group in Isiolo, a city deep within the heart of Kenya, hundreds of miles from the Somali border.

via Kenyans Recruited for Al-Shabaab :: The Investigative Project on Terrorism.

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Report: Afghanistan is the worst place to live for women

by Claudia

Even worse than Saudi Arabia?

Widespread violence, lack of health care and poverty make Afghanistan the worse country in the world for women, this according to a study by the Thomson-Reuters Foundation. However, AsiaNews sources do not share such a negative view.

The study, based on interviews with 213 experts from around the world, indicates that Afghanistan tops a list of five worst nations, ahead of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, India and Somalia. The inclusion of India has raised eyebrows given its great economic development; however, widespread female foeticide and the nation’s sex trade explain its low ranking.

The survey was compiled to mark the launch of a website, TrustLawWoman, aimed at providing free legal advice to women’s groups.

High maternal mortality rates, limited access to doctors and a “near total lack of economic rights” render Afghanistan such a threat to its female inhabitants. “Continuing conflict, NATO air strikes and cultural practices combine to make Afghanistan a very dangerous place for women,” Antonella Notari, head of Women Change Makers, said.

More here.

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Al-Shabab, the American connection

by Claudia
Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki

Abu Mansur al-Amriki. Image via Wikipedia

The news of another American suicide bomber shows, once again, the deadly allure of jihadism among a small number of young US citizens, but it also casts a light on the potential danger that allowing the conflict in Somalia to continue unabated poses. Now that we are at the third possible American suicide bomber in Somalia, it is time to take stronger measures to solve this problem – before it comes back to haunt us in the west.

In a cynical way, the news is a tidy resolution for security services. The fact that these young men have died abroad means they will no longer be able to pose a threat at home. But this fails to take into account the larger threat that these deaths represent, both in terms of the embedding of jihadist ideas in North America, but also the growing menace internationally of the al-Shabaab group.

The story of the American jihad is not new. At this point, we have seen jihadist plots in the US with links to all of the major jihadist battlefields abroad, and in many cases, they have involved US citizens. And within the US, there have been a number of plots uncovered involving Americans who have radicalised and chosen to participate in plots that may have concluded in terrorist attacks. The conviction of Tahawwur Rana for his role in a plot targeting Denmark was merely the latest manifestation.

Somalia and al-Shabaab (whose name literally means “the youth”) is a subset of this issue, but one that has been growing in importance as it becomes clear that the group has been able to draw to itself both young ethnic Somalis and an ever increasing number of radicalised young men and women from other ethnicities. Young Shabaab leader Omar Hammami, for example, is a Daphne, Alabama native of Syrian descent who left the comfort of the US to serve as a leader in the Somali group using the nom de guerre “Abu Mansur al-Amiriki”. And he is not alone, with some of his compatriots agreeing to act as suicide bombers in that war-torn country.

Found here.

Somalia: Minister killed by Al-Shebab

by Claudia

Apparently he was killed by his niece:

Al-Shabaab, the Al-Qaeda linked insurgent group, based in Somalia, have claimed responsibility for an explosion that killed the country’s interior minister, and said they did so because the minister was “an obstacle” to its endeavor to topple the struggling government. Al-Shabab spokesman Sheik Ali Mohamud Rage said at a press conference in the capital, Mogadishu, that militants would continue their attacks against top officials until they defeat the government of the Horn of Africa nation. Somalia has not had an effective government for two decades. Interior Minister Abdishakur Sheik Hassan was killed Friday in an explosion in his home, and a female relative was suspected of being the bomber.

More here.

Kenya: preacher accused of Al-Shabaab recruitment among youths

by Claudia
Orthographic projection map of Kenya highlight...

Image via Wikipedia

Not surprising:

“The preacher (name withheld), visited Somalia in 2009 and received military training from foreign jihadists in Somalia with affiliation to Al Qaeda. He also received training on radical brand of Islam where the core tenet is that there can be no harmonious co-existence between Muslims and other faiths,” the sources stated.

According to people close to the preacher, the recruitment of the youth is done at a mosque in Majengo in Mombasa, where he holds weekly lectures. “The content of the lectures portrays the Somalia clan wars as the ultimate jihad, where anyone who dies in such wars will be a martyr and the heavens is the permanent abode,” stated the preacher’s allies.

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Somalia: women raped with impunity

by Claudia

The three Somali women sat huddled together in a corner of an empty, dusty room in a camp for displaced people in northern Somalia, their faces etched with grief and resignation.

They were all rape victims. Two of them had been gang-raped, by up to six men.

…
Roberta Russo from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees works with young Somali women who are victims of rape. She told me the perpetrators are all too frequently young men in the towns surrounding the camp.

The only way some of these young women can earn a few cents a day is collecting rubbish.

“The internally displaced girls often have to go far away to isolated places where men attack them,” Ms Russo tells me.

A prominent campaigner against sex attacks talked to me passionately and with commitment about the difficulties of bringing prosecutions against the perpetrators.

There are not enough police and frankly, she said, the police sometimes colluded in the attacks or carried them out themselves.

Meanwhile the UN worried about Islamophobia…

Pope prays for hostages in Sinai Desert

by Claudia

Pope Benedict XVI

I would like to watch this on the news. It’s shameful this is not being really reported (at least here, it isn’t):

Campaigners have welcomed the intervention by Pope Benedict XVI on behalf of refugees from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan who are being held hostage in the Sinai Desert by people traffickers.

Hundreds of refugees from the Horn of Africa have been held for months on the outskirts of a town in the Sinai Desert in purpose-built containers, where Bedouin people traffickers are demanding payment of up to US$8,000 per person for their release, though the hostages had already paid US$2,000 for passage to Israel.

On 1 December Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Human Rights Concern Eritrea, Agenzia Habeshia and EveryOne Group issued a joint appeal for urgent international intervention in the plight of the refugees, who are currently being held in degrading and inhumane conditions, bound by chains around their ankles and denied adequate food and water. The appeal details extreme methods of torture suffered by the refugees, including electric shocks, to force friends and families abroad to make the payments. The women in the group, who have been separated from the rest, are particularly vulnerable to severe abuse.

During his Angelus address on Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI invited pilgrims “to pray for all situations of violence, intolerance, suffering in the world, that the coming of Jesus may bring consolation, reconciliation and peace. I think of the many difficult situations, such as the continuous attacks that occur in Iraq against Christians and Muslims, the clashes in Egypt where there were deaths and injuries, the victims of traffickers and criminals, such as the drama of the hostages, Eritreans and of other nationalities, in the Sinai desert. Respect for the rights of all is the prerequisite for peace. Our prayer to the Lord and our solidarity can bring hope to those who are suffering.”

via Pope prays for hostages in Sinai Desert on Independent Catholic News.

UK: Al-Qaeda Terrorist Arrested

by Claudia

Theresa May

On Wednesday, British Home Secretary Theresa May said that its very likely British extremists hardened and trained in Somalia may try to commit mass murder in London. This comes after it was revealed that they arrested a member of al-Qaeda and is holding him. They have pledged to do more to target terrorism overseas.

Talking to the Royal United Services Institute, May revealed that an associate of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was arrested earlier this year and is suspected of planning an attack on the country. This terrorist unit has been blamed for the cargo bomb plot on the US just last week, which was intercepted. The bombs were found in printer cartridge packages in Dubai and Britain and were being mailed to the US. It’s believed that Anwar al-Awlaki, a US national and al-Qaeda leader, was the mastermind behind the attack from his base in Yemen.

May says that the government’s review on counter-terrorism will include big changes that will lead to a much better balance. They will enhance their protective security measures where necessary, she explained, and will invest in stopping plots and conflict prevention overseas. They will refocus the strategy for preventing radicalization in Britain, she continued, and will strike a better balance between their security and liberties.

via al-Qaeda Terrorist Arrested in Britain | Travel news from car rentals.

I would like to know, how they are going to do that, if they don’t fight the ideology behind.

Photo: here.

Somalia: Al-Shabab executes 2 girls; town horrified

by Claudia

The two accused spies died amid a fusillade of bullets from a firing squad organized by a hardline Islamist militia. The condemned pair were only girls, aged 15 and 18, and their grieving relatives say they were uneducated, usually stayed at home and could not have spied for anyone.

Horrified residents of the town of Belet Weyne, in western Somalia, were forced to watch the execution by al-Shabab on Wednesday. One woman fainted as the girls were gunned down by 10 masked executioners. Continue reading →

Somalia: schoolboy tells of how Islamists cut off his leg and hand

by Claudia

More barbarity from Somalia: Somali schoolboy tells of how Islamists cut off his leg and hand:

“He has learned to button his shirt using only his left hand, to roll his sleeve with his teeth, to balance on his right foot in the shower. He cannot forgive, though he is desperate to forget. But at night his dreams betray him.

This is how it happened, Abdulle told the Guardian. He was a prisoner in an insurgents’ house in Mogadishu, lying on his side, one hand chained to his ankles. He was 17, with fluff on his cheeks and unspeakable fear in his heart. Three other young men were with him – Jalylani, Ali, Abduqadir.

A guard, from the Islamist group al-Shabaab, which is trying to overthrow the Somali government, gripped his shoulder. ‘Ismael Khalif Abdulle, come with me.’

A convoy of rebel battlewagons cleared the way through the battered streets. Reaching Masalah, an old military barracks, he saw his mother through the car window and shouted to her. The guard slapped his face. ‘Today is not the day to call your mother,’ he said.

Ordered to witness the punishment of the “spies and bandits” or face lashes themselves, the entire neighbourhood had assembled. Also watching were some of the Shabaab’s top leaders – Sheikh Mukhtar Robow, the Somali-Swede Fuad Shangole, and Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki, the American who recruits and finances foreign fighters.

In the middle of the stony parade ground were about 20 militiamen in green fatigues. Their faces were masked. They were wearing surgical gloves. On the ground was a single plastic mattress.

Abdulle says he was made to lie down. His left hand was tied to his right ankle with a thick rope, leaving the other limbs free for what was to come. Rubber surgical tubing bit into his right biceps – a tourniquet. One rebel grabbed his hand, another his forearm. They pulled in opposite directions as a piece of plastic was laid over his wrist.

“Please make it quick,” he pleaded.

A heavily built man drew a large wooden-handled knife normally used to slaughter camels. The knife descended.

Though their horror was far from over, Abdulle and the three other young men “cross amputated” – a process of cutting off a hand and foot from opposite sides of the body – by the Shabaab on 26 June 2009, eventually escaped from their Islamist captors, and managed to cross to the government-controlled side of the city. Abdulle recently managed to flee Somalia, and reach a safehouse in Nairobi, Kenya, where he gave this interview.

His story offers a rare insight into how the Shabaab is using its extreme interpretation of Islam to establish order through fear – and to find recruits.

Abdulle was born in 1992, a year after the last effective government fell, and warlords took over the country. As far as it is possible to have a normal upbringing amid the anarchy, he did. Once Shabaab forces took full control of the Bakara market area where he lived, in early 2009, security immediately improved – but at a huge cost to personal and social freedoms.

Photo: Ismael Khalif Abdulle who was cross amputated by the Somali Islamist group al-Shabaab Photograph Sven Torfinn for the Guardian.

US: Man who threatened South Park authors pleads guilty over links to Somali Islamists

by Claudia

US Man Pleads Guilty Over Links To Somali Islamists:

“An American Muslim convert from Fairfax county in Virginia has pleaded guilty to ties with Somali Islamist militants and of urging attacks on perceived blasphemist writers of a popular television cartoon show, reports said on Wednesday.

Zachary Adam Jesser (Photo: Jawa Report)


Zachary Adam Chesser, 20, was apparently incensed by the alleged disparaging depiction of Prophet Mohammed in ‘South Park.’

Chesser pleaded guilty to three counts including communicating threats, soliciting others to threaten violence and providing material support to al-Shabaab, the Somali militant outfit with suspected links to al-Qaeda proscribed by the U.S. 

He also published residential addresses of the writers of South Park and urged online readers to ‘visit’ them.

The charges carry a prison sentence of up to 30 years.

According to prosecutors, he also tried to travel twice to Somalia to join al-Shabaab and even attempted to carry his infant son in the belief that it could help evade detection.“

Background:
South Park 0, RevolutionMuslim.com 1?.
Blogosphere: The dark side of the man who “warned” South Park creators.
US: The Simpsons support South Park creators.

Somalia: British NGO consultant freed

by Claudia

Tolerance.ca® – British NGO consultant freed in Somalia:

“After the intervention of local elders Frans Barnard was released unharmed this morning. The man, who was born in Zimbabwe, was kidnapped in the night 14/15. October 2010 in Adado in Central Somalia and not far from the Ethiopian border together with his Somali interpretor Moalim Bashir Lugey, who had been released already earlier and shortly after the nightly attack.”

They are the Save The Children’s workers who were kidnapped in Somalia some days ago. The NGO has denied any ransom was paid.

Somalia Al-Shabab executes two Ethiopians for being "spies"

by Claudia

The radical Islamist insurgent group al-Shabab linked to al Qaeda, publicly executed two Ethiopian national citizens in the district of Elasha Biyaha in Mogadishu after having accused them of spying, official sources confirmed to Efe.

The two men, handcuffed and blindfolded, were taken yesterday to a soccer field located in one of the biggest camps for displaced people in the world, the Hall of Afgoi, a little over 20 kilometers from the capital of Somalia.

Al Shabab officials told the public through a megaphone that the two men were Ethiopians who had been taken to the place to be executed, to which the present responded with chants and anti-Ethiopian slogans.

The governor of Al Shabab in Mogadishu, Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Ali (above, seated), said in front of the audience for the first time was to run two spies of Ethiopian nationality.

“By the will of God, we have captured these two enemies, two Ethiopian intelligence officers who were trying to accomplish a mission,” said Hussein. “Both are Christians and therefore they are enemies of God and Muslims,” he added.
After the speech, “several armed rebels who covered their faces with turbans dragged the two men, who had both legs and arms chained to the center of the field, where they shot dead,” said Abdullahi Abdi, a witness of the facts, to EFE.
After the execution, Hussein said that many more spies would be brought to the same place where they would receive the same sentence: “In this site we will execute spies, many agents of the CIA and the Ethiopian government will end up here,” said .
With the execution of these two Ethiopians, it is estimated that 10 people had been murdered by Al Shabab in public on charges of espionage, although they are the first foreigners.

Source.

Photo: European Photo Press Service.

(Translation: T&P).