Wow.
A Nation team accompanied a Kenyan delegation of Islamic leaders, led by Mandera Central MP Billow Kerrow and National Muslim Leaders Forum chairman Abdullahi Abdi, on a fact- finding tour of the town last week to confirm that normalcy had returned.
For the last three months, the delegation was told, nobody had been shot dead in Mogadishu since the take-over of the town by the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) on June 5.
The union is a loose alliance of Islamic scholars, elders and businessmen who have successfully managed to throw warlords out of the city and a large section of southern Somalia, which they had zoned into mini-kingdoms.
posted by Steve | 1:45 PM
7 Comments:
Hi Steve
Today at 6.30 pm swedish time which is GMT -2h. there will be a program on CNN about Somalia.
cordially
Flavian
Unfortunately, I don't have CNN. Did you watch it? What did you think?
A Swedish journalist was shot at point blank range at an Islamic rally just a few weeks ago.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=21183&only
I hope that I will be able to watch it this evening and I will try to tell something about the program.
I do not even have a TV, but a friend has TV with "one million" channels. I hope that CNN is one of them.
Anonymous, I know about the murder of the Swedish journalist. It would seem to me that the people with the motive for committing it would be enemies of the courts. Wouldn't you agree? Recall that PBS did not have video of the rally in support of the courts on June 6th...
http://www.markacadeey.com/pbs_abdi_samatar.rm
http://www.hiiraan.com/news/2006/jun/Abdi-Samatar-pbs-Interview-page-2.aspx
...and that Adler was filming another rally in support of the courts and creating a documentary about them. So I think that it would be reasonable to hypothesize that some powerful people don't want people in the outside world to see contented Mogadishans in newish clothes rallying in support of the group that we're supposed to believe is the new Taliban in the place we're supposed to believe is hell on earth.
I saw the program but unfortunatly there was only a short spot about Somalia, the rest was about other african countries.
However: In the town Merka/Merca south of Mogadishu there seem to be no gun laws and many people carry machine guns.
That was about what I could find out from the short spot.
That's great news. I think it's a safe bet that foreign peacekeepers won't be sent to Merka!
I was under the impression that Yusuf Indhacadde was ruling Merka with an iron fist, but now it seems that's not the case.
Here's an interesting story from May that talks about Indhacadde. It's quite a scandal if it's true.
http://www.somalinet.com/news/world/Somalia/2532
"Sheik Yusuf Mohamed Siad known as Indha Ade, who controls a good chunk of southern Somalia, including the port city of Marka talked to many Mogadishu radio stations and said he met with US officials many times, both in Somalia and in Kenya and was offered five million dollars for handing over non-existent al-Qaeda members to the American authority. Shaik Siad unlike many Mogadishu warlords who took the money and started Mogadishu's current unrest, he refused to be bought. "I don't understand why America is arming these warlords who have been terrorizing Somalia and its capital city for over fifteen years. Is American public better than poor Somalis who are dying in this unjust war?" he said in one of the interviews he gave Mogadishu radio stations. "If America is fighting terrorism, it must not support it in other countries." He said."
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