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 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.

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.

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).

Two Save the Children staff have been kidnapped by unknown gunmen in Somalia, the charity says.

The men, seized from the town of Adado near the Ethiopian border, are a British security consultant and a local aid worker.

Locals said the security consultant also has Zimbabwean nationality.

The BBC's Mohamed Mwalimu says the kidnapping came amid fierce fighting involving tanks and heavy artillery around Adado.

Local residents have told our correspondent in the capital, Mogadishu, that a moderate Islamist group allied to the UN-backed government seized the town from a local warlord on Friday morning, in clashes which left at least seven people dead.

One Somalia expert has told the BBC that the group, Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jama, attacked Adado in retaliating for the kidnapping.

But the group says it moved in because of an increase in activity there by the hardline Islamist group al-Shabab, which has links to al-Qaeda.

... The security consultant had gone there to see if it was safe enough for Save the Children to set up a new base to help malnourished and sick children, along with their families.

But on Thursday evening, a group of masked gunmen stormed the building used as a staff residence.

High walls and a heavy steel gate reportedly forced the kidnappers to climb in through a window before they fled with their hostages into an area said to be controlled by al-Shabab.

Save the Children says it is extremely concerned about the welfare of those being held and calls for their unconditional release.

Source.

The area is a traditional operative field from the pirates, too.

A man kept a vast library of terrorist instruction manuals on how to make bombs and suicide vests, the Old Bailey has heard. Musse Yusuf (31) allegedly stored more than 200,000 files relating to topics ranging from waging guerilla war to fitness training for al-Qaeda recruits. The titles included The Mujahideen Terrorist Handbook, Instructions on How to Attack Jewish People, The al-Qaeda Manual and Promoting Jihad.

Yusuf, who is Somalian, was arrested by police at his home in Higgs Close, Crown Hills, Leicester, at 6am on May 28, 2008.

Prosecutor Max Hill said: "These two hard drives were found to contain very large quantities of material. They are terrorist videos and terrorist manuals or handbooks. The videos contain practical information on the making of suicide vests, improvised explosive devices or bombs and the manuals are entitled the Mujahideen Terrorist Handbook and the Mujahideen Explosives Handbook. Among this material was material that suggested support for the cause of al Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Crown say this material contains wide-ranging instructions on how to carry out military activity through the use of bombs, guerilla warfare, firearms, improvised explosive devices among many others."

Representatives of 45 nations and international bodies met in Madrid Monday to consider plans to strengthen an African Union peacekeeping force in war-torn Somalia.

The AU force, known as AMISOM, comprises about 7,200 troops, and the meeting of the UN-backed International Contact Group on Somalia, which is to conclude on Tuesday, will "look into a possible reinforcement," Spain's foreign ministry said in a statement.

Stepping up the fight against maritime piracy in waters off the coast of Somalia and finding ways to boost support for the country's transitional government will be among the other topics discussed, it added.

Delegates from 45 nations and international organisations, including the United States and the European Union, are taking part in the meeting which was closed to the press.

Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and the top United Nations envoy to the country, Augustine Mahiga, are among the participants.

Ahmed warned in a speech before the UN General Assembly on Saturday that Somalia is "a weak link" in the fight against international terrorism and urged nations to continue to assist in training its forces and supporting the AU peacekeeping contingent.

Image via WikipediaApart from Northern Ireland's IRA, he added:

Jonathan Evans also warned of a growing menace from Somalia and Yemen and said extremists could try to target the 2012 London Olympics, in a speech delivered late Thursday.
..."The fact that there are real plots uncovered on a fairly regular basis demonstrates that there is a persistent intent on the part of Al-Qaeda and its associates to attack the UK," Evans told an audience in London.
"The country continues to face a real threat from Al-Qaeda-related terrorism."
While a couple of years ago around three-quarters of plots aimed at Britain were linked to Al-Qaeda in Pakistan, the figure has fallen to 50 percent now due in part to increased activity in Somalia and Yemen.
Evans added that while there would be a "major security operation" around the Olympics, security services should assume that some extremists will "see an opportunity to gain notoriety and inflict damage."

They will (of course) be forced to convert to Islam... and to be trained as soldiers:

Fataho was a long-time Christian deeply involved in the activities of the small, secret Christian community, sources said. Area Christians said they suspected someone had informed the insurgents of Fataho’s faith.

The assailants abducted his wife and children, later releasing her on the condition that she surrender the little ones to be trained as soldiers, sources said.

“We know they have taken the children to brain-wash them, to change their way of life from Christian to Muslim and to teach them the Quran,” said one source. “Al Shabaab was aware that her husband was a Christian, but they were not sure of her faith.”

Yeah, I'm hearing the international outcry after the deep coverage made by CNN, BBC and Al-Jazeera.

Oh, wait... there is none....

More information on child soldiers in Somalia here (PDF).

Turkey plans to hold an international conference on the political situation in Somalia in which measures to fight piracy off the coast of the African country will be discussed.

According to Spanish Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Angel Losada, the international conference on Somalia is scheduled to be held in Istanbul in mid-May.

The Spanish foreign minister said on Tuesday that the conference would also be examining the effects of international assistance to the interim government of Somalia, the Anatolia news agency reported.

Losada also stated that the idea of an international conference on Somalia was first put forward last year by Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Somalia has been beset by unrest since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

In addition, the Somali coast has been infested by piracy in recent years.

Attacks by heavily-armed Somali raiders in speedboats have prompted foreign navies to patrol the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean and to provide escorts for commercial vessels travelling in the area.

This is the Government we are supporting. No Al-Shabab, no Al-Qaeda here:

the Islamic scholars jointly issued a 12 point communiqué that highlights the current scenarios facing Somalia, and condemning many un-Islamic practices used to fuel the escalating conflict and also warning the people.

They called on the Muslims to strictly follow the Islamic way of life and adhere to the ways in which Prophet Muhammad (...) used in reaching out to the population.

Authorities in Somalia were urged to implement the Islamic Shari'ah Law in the areas they control.

The Islamic clerics warned of legitimizing shedding Muslim blood in the "disguise of fighting for Islam" and also tagging a Muslim person as an infidel without taking the due process.

Hey, with the "due process" you can tag a Muslim person as infidel. So imagine someone who is not a Muslim...

"Somalis are Muslims and they need to be calmly corrected in terms of their faith, culture and behavior. So, it is not acceptable for these groups fighting in Somalia to judge each other and other people as apostate," reads the communiqué issued at the conclusion of the Islamic conference in Garowe.

The clerics also agreed that the war that is going on in Somalia is an "incitement"rather than a holy war (jihad), as claimed by the Islamist insurgent factions like Al Shabaab.

The communiqué condemned the presence of foreign troops in the country, saying they are not welcomed by the Somali people. Mogadishu is home to about 5,300 soldiers from Uganda and Burundi who are serving under an African Union peacekeeping mandate.

The presence of foreign troops inside the war-torn country is "dangerous to the religion and socio-political well being of the population," it adds. (Oh, wait, their Muslim "purity" could be contaminated by non-Muslim forigners... Bunch of racists Islamic supremacists...)

Acts of piracy along the Somalia's coastline was also condemned in the communiqué, terming it "dangerous and shameful to Islam" and also degrading the people's way of life.

The Somali Islamic scholars proposed a large reconciliation conference to be held inside Somalia, which would bring together all the Islamic scholars to discuss the way forward in the bid to find a lasting solution for the swelling problems that face Somalia at the moment.

Who would they be reconciled with? Al Shabab?

Has African Union something to say about it? [I think Lybia is now chairing it, so, ... no] Has Ban "I make trips to condemn Israelis but never when it's a Muslim country" Ki-Moon sais something about this "peaceful" communiqué?

Link.

The four of them were offered to renounce Christianity and go back to Islam but none of them accepted. Four martyrs more.

After the ban on music:

Islamist militants al-Shabab have banned teachers using bells to signal the end of class in the town of Jowhar, 90km (56 miles) north of Mogadishu.

Al-Shabab said the bells sounded too much like Christian church bells.

When Dahir Abdi joined the Somali extremist group Al-Shabab early last year, his motive had more to do with money than with God.
Back home in the Barawa district of southern Somalia, his parents and younger brothers and sisters were living on less than a single meal per day. His mother was too weak to fetch firewood to sell in the market, and too poor to buy the all-covering veil that was now required by Al-Shabab.
So when a recruiter from Al Shabab (whose name means “the youth” in Arabic) gave him $400 and the promise of a regular salary, Dahir joined willingly. He knew that even if he didn’t survive the war, his family would have a better chance to ward off starvation.
By the time Dahir arrived for six months of training at a camp in the densely forested southern coastal town of Ras Kiamboni, it was clear that he was just one of hundreds of young recruits preparing for war. It was clear, too, that deserting from Shabab – which has declared its allegiance to Al Qaeda – would be dangerous.
“When they recruited me, I was told I am going to fight against the African Union troops and against the Transitional Government, which didn’t want an Islamic government,” says Dahir, a talkative young man with a lean frame, who deserted Al Shabab late last year and now lives in hiding. Looking nervously from side to side as he spoke with a reporter in the Dagahley refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya, he continues. “I was given $400 before I left home, and this I gave to my father and bid my family goodbye. They didn’t want me to leave. My father looked at me in tears and prayed for my safe homecoming.”

Via.

So, where does Al-Shabab get the money to pay so many recruits? Obama has recently freezed the assets of 11 individual who were helping Al-Shabab and of Al-Shabab itself, a move that should be followed by other countries and that should have been taken so long ago.

Jawa Report has the news and images. Al-Shabab has distributed the photos, with the aim (surely) of cautioning other people against disobeying the order to pay the Jizya, the tax non-Muslims should pay when the live under a Muslim lord.

The images are disturbing to say the least. Proceed with caution.

PS: Sorry, the link was not correct  . Certainly Mafalda has nothing to do with Al-Shebab. Now the link is correct.

US President Barack Obama Tuesday signed an executive order freezing the property in the United States of members of a group of radical Islamists "contributing to the conflict in Somalia."
Obama said in his order he "declared a national emergency to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by that conflict."
He said that the measure, which named 11 individuals and the Al-Qaeda-inspired hardline Shebab militia, was "not targeted at the entire country of Somalia, but rather is intended to target those who threaten peace and stability in Somalia."

About time...

Anyway, that clarification seems a little bit useless, isn't it? Of course, the measure, which goes against 11 individuals and a terrorist group is not targeted at the entire country.

While the ban on music stopped the broadcasting on several radios, fights continue, with an added problem: lack of doctors and nurses. The existent have to cope with the increasing number of casualties:

According to WHO, only 250 qualified doctors, 860 nurses and 116 midwives work today in Somalia, home to the lowest number of health workers of any country in the Horn of Africa or Middle East.

Also Mark Bowden, the United Nations Humanitarian Co-ordinator for Somalia, expressed serious concern over the Somali crisis, which has deepened over the years since the fall of Siad Barre in 1991.

The UN official added that since the start of the year, fighting in Mogadishu has forced over 100,000 people from their homes.

Horrible perspectives.

Tha author of the threats is the Islamist group "Hizbul Islam".

Rock, rap and love songs once filled the airwaves in Somalia's war-torn capital, one of the few pleasures residents had. But Islamist militants ordered music off the air Tuesday, labeling it un-Islamic in a hardline edict reminiscent of the Taliban.
Stations immediately complied, fearful that disc jockeys would face the harsh punishment militants mete out here: amputations and stonings. The edict is the latest unpopular order from the Islamists, who also have banned bras, musical ringtones and movies.
More than a dozen radio stations complied with the order by the militant group Hizbul Islam, the National Union of Somali Journalists said.
"Journalists working in these stations have in the past witnessed broad daylight assassination of their colleagues and have now been signaled that they would follow the same fate if they do not obey these oppressive orders," said the union's secretary-general, Omar Faruk Osman.

The radio stations broadcasted sounds of animals, waves and gunfire instead of music.

Al-Jazeera:

At least 23 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Somalia in the lastest clash between government troops and armed rebels in Mogadishu, the capital, medics have said.
The clash on Saturday brings the death toll to more than 70 this week as government troops attempt to drive Somali rebels out of their bases in the capital.
"As of now, I can tell you that 23 died and more than 50 injuries were dropped at the hospital," Ali Muse, a paramedic, told the Reuters news agency.
The government and rebels who want to install an Islamic state in the east African country blame each other for instigating the violence.
"They (the government) started the new offensive and they were defeated and remain in an area of only 2km. They have suffered a major setback," Sheikh Muse Abdi Arale, a spokesman for the rebel Hizbul Islam group, told Reuters.

This is going to makes things even more complex in the area. These Somali Islamists have also threatened to attack Ethiopia, even if the latter has not really being alarmed by that, as they think this is "not a present and clear danger for Ethiopia".

In the latter days, Al-Shabaab has also beheaded two sons of a Christian leader.