Islamists slap Sharia law on Somalia town

ICC Note

Islamist extremists in Somalia imposed sharia law in the town of Celwaq . These groups are also hell-bent on destroying Christians.

10/03/2008 Somalia (AFP)-Islamists in a town in southern Somalia have imposed Sharia law in line with their vow to bring back Islamic theocracy to areas where they were ousted two years ago, a spokesman said Friday.

The Mujahideens of Southern Somalia, a group allied to the radical Shebab movement on Thursday named a 23-member board to enforce the law in Celwaq, about 650 kilometres (400 miles) southwest of Mogadishu .

“This administration will govern the town using laws of the Holy Koran,” its spokeman Mohamed Osmail Indhobur told AFP.

When in power in 2006, the Islamists carried out executions, shuttered cinemas and photo shops, banned live band music, flogged drug offenders and harassed civilians, mainly women, for failing to wear appropriate dress in public.

Alarmed by the strict and fundamentalist version of Sharia law, the United States led Western concern over a “creeping Talibanization” in Somalia by the Islamists.