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| Africa Horn |
| Somalia: Al-Shabab gains more ground |
| 2008-11-13 |
| Remnants of an Islamist government waging an insurgency against Somalia's interim authorities took over two strategic towns in on Tuesday, the latest territory gain by a strengthening rebellion, officials said. The Islamist Al-Shabaab movement, once part of the Union of Islamic Courts government that splintered after being pushed from power, seized Al-Dheer in central Somalia and Qoryoley in the south as part of a burgeoning campaign to take territory held by the weak UN-backed interim government and its Ethiopian allies. The new seizures give the group a strategic base in central Somalia, where it controls Kismayo, the third-largest city. The Union of Islamic Courts had brought the first order in years - in the form of strict Sharia law - to large swathes of central and southern Somalia in 2006. The group was ousted after Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia at the behest of the interim regime, a body formed in exile and, at the time, ruled territory along the Kenyan border. Al-Shabaab fighters took over Al-Dheer, a crossroads linking southern, central and northern Somalia, Tuesday, according to Sheikh Ali Dhere, the group's spokesman. The town is 340 kilometers north of Mogadishu. "The town seems to be under the full control of Al-Shabaab," local human rights worker Mohammad Gule Hassan said. "After 24 hours of tension and fear in the town, which forced hundreds of people to flee from their homes, the fighting ended." In a separate attack, nearly 1,000 insurgents seized Qoryoley in southern Somalia from militias loyal to Somalia's crumbling government. "They opened fire on our checkpoints and after we realized they were more mobile than us we decided to withdraw," said the town's police chief, Nor Shakow Jibril. Since being ousted from government, more moderate members of the Islamic courts have signed an ineffectual peace deal with the government. Earlier Monday, at least four Somalis were killed near Al-Dheer in clashes between Al-Shabaab fighters and a local militia that took up arms to protest a ban on qat, a widely consumed narcotic leaf, witnesses said Tuesday. The militia attacked the Islamists late Monday near Al-Dheer, killing two of them and sparking a retaliatory attack in which two of their own died. Al-Shabaab members had set up camp near the town before taking it Tuesday. "The gangs attacked our forces in the region trying to stop moves to eliminate drugs, including qat, which is part of Sharia," said Sheikh Hassan Mohammad, an Al-Shabaab commander. "We defeated and killed two of them. We fully control the region now." |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #6 There was an article a day or two ago saying how much of their funding comes from expats in Britain. Just some of Labour's favourite house guests. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2008-11-13 18:42 |
| #5 kinda like alqueda i'm sure the money gets distributed among all kinds of militant groups through local charities |
| Posted by: chris 2008-11-13 12:18 |
| #4 There was an article a day or two ago saying how much of their funding comes from expats in Britain. |
| Posted by: Fred 2008-11-13 10:50 |
| #3 of course funded by saudi |
| Posted by: chris 2008-11-13 09:04 |
| #2 funded by saudi???? |
| Posted by: Paul2 2008-11-13 07:50 |
| #1 wow, i would rather control half my bathroom than that shithole |
| Posted by: chris 2008-11-13 07:41 |