The Barber: http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/the- ... -of-peace/
The Doctor: http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/the- ... shellfire/In 2006, the Islamists emerged and began fighting. The dollar rate rose as high as 30,000 Somali shillings.
The Islamist period was undoubtedly the worst. Girls were forcibly married, property looted and innocent ones beheaded under the pretext of imposing Islamic sharia law.
This Al-Shabaab used minority clans like the Somali Bantu to behead people. Al-Shabaab shot my oldest son in the head. They knew he was a former soldier. I live in a government-controlled area and I am sure they will behead me if they see me.
The Singer: http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/the- ... brutality/I have been a doctor in Mogadishu since 1985 and I am sure few people liked that dictator's regime. Businesses were restricted, doctors had no right to own their own private hospitals. The parties that drove out that government were right but the problem was they had no plan for forming a better government.
The Soldier: http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/the- ... xtremists/We hid guitars and trumpets and locked ourselves up in rooms in 2006 when the Islamists came to power. To them a singer was not a Muslim and so deserved to be killed. This was the worst period in the last two decades.
The Khat-Seller: http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/the- ... marriages/In 2006, the worst morning was born for Somalia. Somali extremists enlisted cursed foreigners. The Islamic courts led by the current president bred all evils.
It was a strange culture of beheading, cutting lips, ears and limbs, digging graves of great sheikhs and taking the bones. They started beating any woman who wore no veil and any man who did not grow his beard.
Extremist Islamists do not give a cent to their parents or relatives unless they conform to their ideology. Cockroaches breed in toilets and extremists in collapsed countries.
A relative of mine leads a dog’s life. His wives and children were indoctrinated by Islamists in 2006. They told him he was not a good Muslim and threatened him with death.
One of his wives and two daughters married jihadists and his sons became fighters, hunting down their old father. Since then, he's been hiding in hotels in the areas under the control of the government and African Union forces. This is where I also hide. I cannot go to Al-Shabaab areas. They will obviously behead me.
Somalis were deceived by these Islamists. They supported and helped them fight the warlords but afterwards the Islamists slaughtered them like animals, stole their money and took their wives and daughters.
Most Somalis now regret ousting the warlords, but gone is gone. Only minority clans and two or three powerful sub-clans support Al-Shabaab and believe in the so-called jihad as a means of attacking the other clans.
In 2006, brutal Islamists emerged. Their main aim was to destroy society. First of all, they destroyed the warlords and their militias who were mainly driving the economy. They forced us to put on heavy veils in Somalia’s hot climate. And lastly, they banned khat.
People talk of six peaceful months under the Islamic courts but this is nonsense. They prevented women from working and people almost died of hunger during their rule.
Ethiopian troops came and drove out the cruel Islamists in December 2006. This was a joy. We never wanted the Ethiopians but Al-Shabaab forced us to love them because Al-Shabaab beheaded our people and closed our businesses.
Unfortunately, Al-Shabaab came back and carried out many explosions in 2007. But they did not ban khat this time. Instead they took thousands of dollars in daily tax from the K50 airstrip where planes carrying khat always landed.
I always sold khat in the government areas but Islamists conducted guerrilla warfare almost every day in this place and Ethiopian troops kept on fighting these Islamists. Many women died in buses and in the streets after Islamists targeted them with roadside bombs.
The worst moment was when a masked man hurled a grenade at us in the K5 area where hundreds of women sell khat. Five people including women and street boys died on the spot and a dozen others were injured. The masked man escaped. I could not eat food for two days.
I always remembered how their flesh was scattered in front of me, but we did not stop business because we did not have any other source of income.
The government grew weaker. Al-Shabaab took most of the country save small portions of the capital Mogadishu and most of central Somalia. There is no life in the areas under Al-Shabaab control -- women have been banned from working.
