Somali Islamists execute "spy" for Ethiopians

Reuters UK
MOGADISHU, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Hardline Somali Islamist insurgents said on Friday they executed a politician accused of being a "spy" for Ethiopian troops and militia opposed to them.

The shooting of Abdirahman Ahmed, 55, in the southern port of Kismayu was the highest-profile such execution by the al Shabaab (Youth) group since a young woman was stoned to death late last year after being accused of adultery.

Al Shabaab, which is on a U.S. list of terrorism groups, took Kismayu in August 2008 during its now two-year war against the Somali government and its Ethiopian military backers. It controls large swathes of south-central Somalia.

A local spokesman for al Shabaab, Sheikh Hassan Yacqub, said Ahmed had been warned several times to break ties with the Ethiopians and local militias who previously controlled Kismayu.

"He was in our jail for eight days and then we took him before the court, and finally we executed him according to Islamic sharia law," he told Reuters. "Anybody who spies for the non-believers will definitely face the death sentence."

A statement on www.kataaib.net, one of several sites used by the militants, said Ahmed, was shot after he confessed to being "Allah's enemy" and a court found him guilty of trying to mastermind the re-capture of Kismayu.

Local residents said he had been buried in a place called the "non-believers' cemetery".

Also on Friday, foreign and Somali media watchdogs said kidnappers had released a local journalist, Abdifatah Mohamed Elmi, who was kidnapped in August last year in Mogadishu.

Two foreign journalists taken with him, a Canadian and an Australian, are still missing.

"The Somali journalist's release is obviously good news, but we will feel no relief until the kidnappers have also released the two foreign journalists," Reporters Without Borders said.

"Our concern about their fate is as strong as ever given the growing instability in Mogadishu.