Somalia's newly powerful Islamists said on Monday they will stone to death five rapists, in what some fear is the latest sign of a plan to install a hardline Islamic authority like Afghanistan's Taliban.
The punishments, like others carried out by the Islamists in their sharia courts in the capital Mogadishu and elsewhere, follow the naming of Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys -- on a UN list of al-Qaeda associates -- to a top post over the weekend.
Aweys, a former army colonel who in the 1990s led militant Islamists in failed campaigns in Somalia but has denied any al-Qaeda links, was named head of the Council of Islamic Courts.
Aweys said he will only support a government based on the Koran.
"Somalia is a Muslim nation and its people are also Muslim, 100 percent. Therefore any government we agree on would be based on the holy Koran and the teachings of our Prophet Mohammed," Aweys said on Monday in a telephone interview.
The 71-year-old Aweys, speaking from his home in central Somalia, condemned any attempts to install a Western-style democracy and said he is under no obligation to abide by the wishes of the West.
"It is not compulsory for us to hate what the Westerners hate," he said.
"Our relationship with the US administration will depend on how the US treats us. If it treats us well, we will also treat them well. If it behaves badly, it will be responsible," the former military colonel said, without elaborating.
The US would have no contact with Aweys, but has made no decision about relations with the group as a whole, said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
"Of course we are not going to work with somebody like that and of course we would be troubled if this is an indicator of the direction that this group would go in," McCormack said. "But again let's wait, let's see what the collective leadership of this group does."
The council is a parliament for the Islamists, whose well-trained militias seized Mogadishu from US-backed warlords on June 5 after months of fighting that killed at least 350.
The rapists were to be stoned to death in Jowhar, which the Islamists took in the last phase of a campaign that saw them seize a strategic swathe of Somalia from the coastal capital northwest nearly to the Ethiopian border.
"Five men who raped four women on June 22 will be stoned to death [Monday] in accordance with the Islamic Shariah. They have pleaded guilty to the crime and also have been identified by the victims," Siyad Mohamed, a militia leader linked to Islamic courts, told reporters by phone from Jowhar.
Mohamed later said the execution had been delayed as the courts looked to arrest a sixth suspect. He said it was not clear when the sentences would be carried out.
The Islamist victory dealt an embarrassing public setback to Washington's counter-terrorism campaign, as its support for the much-despised warlords gave the Islamists popular backing.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
RSS