Somalia: amid famine and drought, Al-Shabab is training children as soldiers and murdering NGO workers

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 crisis’ but also ‘a human rights crisis and a children’s crisis.

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 the Islamist insurgent ("terrorist" group), Al-Shabaab, the main armed group opposed to the government in Somalia, is reported to be systematically recruiting children under 15 as child soldiers.

...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 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.

Somalia: Schoolboy speaks about how Al-Shabab "cross amputated" him

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.

Cross-posted from T&P.

32 Dead as Somalia al-Shabab Militants Storm Hotel in Mogadishu

The ROP continues its terror campaign in Somalia with a suicide bombing at Mogadishu's Muna Hotel.

Militants Storm Hotel in Somali Capital, Kill 32

Published August 24, 2010
Associated Press


MOGADISHU, Somalia -- A suicide bomber and gunmen wearing military uniforms attacked a hotel near Somalia's presidential palace Monday, sparking a running gun battle with security forces. At least 32 people were killed, including six Somali parliamentarians.

A parliamentarian who was at the Muna Hotel said there were "dead bodies all over" and he labeled the scene a massacre.

The multi-pronged assault came less than 24 hours after the country's most dangerous militant group -- al-Shabab -- threatened a "massive" war against what it labeled as invaders, a reference to the 6,000 African Union troops in Mogadishu.

The attack on the Muna Hotel raised the two-day toll to at least 70 people, a high number even by Mogadishu's violent standards. Fighting that rocked Mogadishu on Monday killed 40 people, health officials said.

Somalia's deputy prime minister told The Associated Press that 19 civilians, six members of parliament, five security forces and two hotel workers were killed in the attack -- a total of 32.

Two attackers also were killed, said Abdirahman Haji Aden Ibi, the deputy prime minister. A government statement said 31 people were killed.

An 11-year-old shoe shine boy and a woman selling tea in front of the hotel were among the dead, African Union spokesman Maj. Barigye Bahoku said.

A parliamentarian who was at the hotel when the attack occurred said he had seen at least 20 bodies lying in the corridor of the hotel, including one dead member of parliament. The parliamentarian spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear for his safety.

He said the suicide bomber blew himself up near the reception and then gunmen stormed the hotel, setting off a gun battle that lasted about an hour.

Sheik Ali Mohamud Rage, a spokesman for the al-Shabab militia, said that members of the group's "special forces" had carried out the attack against those "aiding the infidels."

Militant veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are believed to be helping train members of al-Shabab, which has links to al-Qaida. Tuesday's assault is only the latest in a series of increasingly lethal attacks. Last month the group claimed responsibility for twin bombings during the World Cup final in Uganda's capital, blasts that killed 76 people.

Al-Shabab said the attack was in retaliation for Uganda's role in the African Union force in Mogadishu.

US: Obama freezes properties of Somali Al-Qaeda-linked individuals and of Al-Shebab

Image via Wikipedia

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 perspective.

Cross-posted from T&P.