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October 14, 2006

Somalia: Islamists Have Second Public Execution In Three Weeks

Yesterday, the Somali Islamists carried out their second public execution since September 22. The Islamic Courts had staged an earlier public execution on May 2. The May execution was ordered by a local Islamic Court in Permuda, a suburb of Mogadishu, where a teenage boy was allowed to stab to death his teacher, who had knifed his father to death.

The Islamists took control of Mogadishu on June 5 and since then have been consolidating their power and authority over the populace of Somalia. The execution on September 22 involved Abdikadir Mohamed Diriye who was in his early 20s, and had confessed to killing Mohamed Hassan Barre on September 10 to steal his cellular phone. In front of a crowd of 6,000 people, including the mother of his victim, Diriye was shot by an eight-man firing squad.

The execution yesterday involved a 23 year old man, Mahad Osman Ugas (pictured above left), who also had been accused of killing a businessman for his cellular phone. His sentencing took place in a dairy in Mogadishu, as had the court which condemned Diriye. Some reports state that Ugas is in his 30s.

The news is carried by Independent Online, All Africa News, Pioneer Times, All Headline News, Garowe, Somalinet and Shabelle.

Ugas had pleaded guilty of the killing Mohamed Siad Ukurow on September 14, and at 9 am yesterday (Friday October 13), he was led out to the square of a former police training compound in the south of Mogadishu. Thousands of onlookers were said to be present. He was shot by a firing squad comprised of six men from the Islamic Courts.

The elder of Ugas' clan, Sultan Ali Sultan Ahmed, said: "Our son was killed unjustly. We appealed against the sentence but the court rejected it." Ahmed claimed that the clan had tried to offer blood money to the victim's relatives, but had not been able to reach a satisfactory arrangement.

On September 24, the Islamists had taken control of the southern port of Kismayo. We wrote on October 9 that an attempt to retake by the port, led by the Juba Valley Alliance, had failed when these had laid down their arms and surrendered to the Islamists. A radio station, Horn-Afrik had been closed down, and three of its journalists who were based in Kismayo were arrested, for reporting on the dissent in the city against the Islamists.

Associated Press via the International Herald Tribune reports today that a second attempt to recapture the city of Kismayo from the Islamist occupiers has failed. Militia loyal to Colonel Barre "Hirale" Aden Shire, the defense minister of the interim government, who had formerly controlled Kismayo, tried to take back the port late yesterday. The fighting on the outskirts lasted for two hours, involving rocket propelled grenades and machine guns, but Shire's militia retreated. The militia are still being pursued by the Islamists, and are heading in the direction of Barhani, a town 30 miles west of Kismayo port.

Early yesterday, Shire's militamen were fighting in Bu'aale, the only town under the control of the interim government. Bu'aale lies 220 miles south of Baidoa, where the interim government of President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed is based. This government had been formed under the supervision of the UN in 2004, following years of conflict and anarchy in Somalia. The lawlessness had started in 1991, when the government of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted.

Yesterday, Reuters AlertNet reported that refugees are flooding out of Somalia and taking refuge in Kenya, at a rate of about 1,000 per day. One refugee from Kismayo, a stonemason and father of three said of the Islamists: "They are bandits. They are the cause of each and every problem. They are too strict when exercising power. I'm not happy with them."

Chewing the stimulant Khat, he told of how the Islamists had banned the leaf-based substance and had provoked protests from Kismayo's populace. He said: "When they banned it, I felt bad, very bad. I can't work without it, I'm not capable of anything without it. They denied me something good."

In the refugee camps in Dadaab in Kenya, about 162,000 refugees live in shacks on sandy, barren ground. NGOs are saying that soon the influx of refugees will overwhelm Dadaab.

In the flimsy set-up of the interim government, there is more political instability. SomaliNet reports that Ali Mohamed Gedi, the prime minister of this government, has announced that a number of opposition members in the cabinet have been sacked. Some had not come to cabinet sessions.

There appears to be a new military leader rising through the militia of the Islamists, called Aden Hashi Ayro, state Gulf News and Garowe. Ayro was trained in Afghanistan, and almost certainly seems to have links to al Qaeda. The US, as well as the Ethiopians, have maintained that the Islamists have links with Al Qaeda.

We reported on December 23 on the inquest into the deaths of a married couple from Britain from 2003, who had worked as aid workers in Africa for thirty years. The couple had been shot in their home in the autonomous region of Somaliland in the north of Somalia. It was believed that their killers falsely assumed that Dick and Enid Eyeington had been trying to convert local Muslims to Christianity. A man named Mohammed Ali Essa had been convicted by a SOmaliland court and sentenced to death.

At the inquest, Det Chief Insp Jill Bailey addressed the inquest. She said the killers of the aid couple were part of a terrorist cell called El Itihad which had killed an Italian nun a week earlier. She also said that Essa's brother-in-law, Adan Ayro, who owned the house in which Essa was captured, could have had links to al-Qa'eda. A plan to blow up an Ethiopian airliner and bomb-making manuals were uncovered during the investigations.

El Itihad is Al Ittihad al-Islami, an Islamist group which was outlawed by the UK government. This group was associated with the 2002 hotel bombing in Kikambala in Kenya, which killed 10 people, including 3 Israelis.

This group was founded by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys (pictured, left) in the 1990s. It was attacked by the Ethiopian army in the late 1990s, and was driven out of Puntland in northern Somalia by Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, who is now being supported by Ethiopia. As we wrote last week, the Islamic Courts have declared Holy War against Ethiopia.

On June 27, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys was made the leader of a ruling body which was more powerful than the existing Union of Islamic Courts. This body is the Supreme Council of Islamic Courts. Though Aweys has consistently denied it, his group Al Ittihad has links with al Qaeda, his protestations are not believable. On July 6 a video revealed Arab fighters amongst the Islamist militia, giving credence to the suggestions that the Islamists were linked with al Qaeda.

The leader of the Islamists' "army", Aden Hashi Ayro, is in his mid-30s, and is said to have al Qaeda training when he was in Afghanistan. U.N. officials have linked him to the murders of 16 people, including the BBC journalist Kate Peyton, who was shot dead in Mogadishu on February 9, 2005. He is also believed by counter-terrorism officials to have been involved in a plot to shoot down an Ethiopian airliner. The plot was never brought to fruition.

Ayro has never been photographed, and only revealed his face to the public last month, addressing his militia after they had invaded Kismayo. He was described by an AP journalist in Kismayo as having a goatee beard, wearing a turban, and carrying two pistols stuffed into his waistband.

He had announced earlier: "Among our militia will be Somalis and foreigners." Journalists noted that his bodyguards seemed to be Arab, and had been told that there were other bodyguards from Other African countries, but also from Central Asia.

Peter Pham, a US-based counterterrorism expert, as well as UN investigators and diplomats, affirm that Aden Hashi Ayro is the Islamists' link man to al Qaeda.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at October 14, 2006 8:05 AM

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