Al-shabab cowardly Kill four Private school teachers.
Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 6:01 pm
They don't work with the government, yet al-shabab killed them. Whats wrong with these people? Private School teachers who are helping their community are targets? These are kind of people we are dealing with
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MOGADISHU, Somalia: Islamic militants killed two Kenyan and two British teachers during a raid on a strategic town in central Somalia early Monday, shooting all four in the latest guerrilla attack designed to topple the country's Western-backed government.
"Our fighters did not intentionally kill the teachers, but what we know is that their guards targeted fire at our forces and they returned fire, therefore maybe they were caught in the crossfire," a spokesman for the Shabab militia, Sheik Moktar Robow, said by telephone.
The seizure of the central town of Belet Weyne was the latest in a series of attacks intended to intimidate the poorly paid Somali forces and avoid drawn-out fights with their more robust Ethiopian allies. Shabab translates as "The Youth" and is the armed wing of the Council of Islamic Courts movement.
Ethiopian troops supporting government forces drove the Islamists from the capital in December 2006, prompting them to launch an Iraq-style insurgency. The militia is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, a categorization it says it welcomes.
Abdi Aden Adow, the Belet Weyne police chief, said security forces had fled the desert town when they heard that the insurgents were coming. Following a typical pattern, the fighters freed prisoners, attacked government property and then withdrew after a few hours. In many attacks, they also capture government vehicles or weapons.
In Belet Weyne, the dead included a 32-year-old woman and a 70-year-old man of Somali origin, both of whom held British passports, and two Kenyans, Adow said. They were shot, according to a guard at the Hakab Private English School. Bandits and warlords roaming Somalia mean that even schools and aid agencies are forced to employ private guards.
Abdihakim Mahamud, a nephew of the dead man, identified him as Daud Hassan Ali. He identified the woman as Rehena Ahmed, a friend of his uncle. She was shot in the head, while Ali and the two Kenyan men were shot in the chest, he said.
"Their bodies are lying at the hospital," Mahamud said.
Abdul-Qadir Anshur Ali, another nephew of the British man, said his uncle had left a comfortable life and a wife and two sons in Birmingham to try to help his war-ravaged homeland two years ago.
He "came to the region to help its people learn something and now he is dead for no reason," Ali said.
Colleagues and the parents of the teachers' pupils paid tribute to the four on Monday.
Sacdiya Ali, a widow whose children study at the school, remembered the teachers as "people who loved the poor and most vulnerable people, including mothers and children. We have lost great people."
At least four other people were killed and more than a dozen wounded in other attacks throughout the country, including a grenade attack on a movie theater in the southern city of Merka that showed Western films and soccer matches.
A resident of Merka, Hassan Amrika, said the building - popular with young people - was strewn with body parts and pools of blood.
The Somali conflict is complicated by clan loyalties and the involvement of Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Somalia is awash with weapons and has not had a functioning government since warlords overthrew the dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned on one another. More than 6,000 Somalis were killed by the fighting last year and hundreds of thousands driven from their homes.
.................................................................................................................................................................
MOGADISHU, Somalia: Islamic militants killed two Kenyan and two British teachers during a raid on a strategic town in central Somalia early Monday, shooting all four in the latest guerrilla attack designed to topple the country's Western-backed government.
"Our fighters did not intentionally kill the teachers, but what we know is that their guards targeted fire at our forces and they returned fire, therefore maybe they were caught in the crossfire," a spokesman for the Shabab militia, Sheik Moktar Robow, said by telephone.
The seizure of the central town of Belet Weyne was the latest in a series of attacks intended to intimidate the poorly paid Somali forces and avoid drawn-out fights with their more robust Ethiopian allies. Shabab translates as "The Youth" and is the armed wing of the Council of Islamic Courts movement.
Ethiopian troops supporting government forces drove the Islamists from the capital in December 2006, prompting them to launch an Iraq-style insurgency. The militia is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, a categorization it says it welcomes.
Abdi Aden Adow, the Belet Weyne police chief, said security forces had fled the desert town when they heard that the insurgents were coming. Following a typical pattern, the fighters freed prisoners, attacked government property and then withdrew after a few hours. In many attacks, they also capture government vehicles or weapons.
In Belet Weyne, the dead included a 32-year-old woman and a 70-year-old man of Somali origin, both of whom held British passports, and two Kenyans, Adow said. They were shot, according to a guard at the Hakab Private English School. Bandits and warlords roaming Somalia mean that even schools and aid agencies are forced to employ private guards.
Abdihakim Mahamud, a nephew of the dead man, identified him as Daud Hassan Ali. He identified the woman as Rehena Ahmed, a friend of his uncle. She was shot in the head, while Ali and the two Kenyan men were shot in the chest, he said.
"Their bodies are lying at the hospital," Mahamud said.
Abdul-Qadir Anshur Ali, another nephew of the British man, said his uncle had left a comfortable life and a wife and two sons in Birmingham to try to help his war-ravaged homeland two years ago.
He "came to the region to help its people learn something and now he is dead for no reason," Ali said.
Colleagues and the parents of the teachers' pupils paid tribute to the four on Monday.
Sacdiya Ali, a widow whose children study at the school, remembered the teachers as "people who loved the poor and most vulnerable people, including mothers and children. We have lost great people."
At least four other people were killed and more than a dozen wounded in other attacks throughout the country, including a grenade attack on a movie theater in the southern city of Merka that showed Western films and soccer matches.
A resident of Merka, Hassan Amrika, said the building - popular with young people - was strewn with body parts and pools of blood.
The Somali conflict is complicated by clan loyalties and the involvement of Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Somalia is awash with weapons and has not had a functioning government since warlords overthrew the dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned on one another. More than 6,000 Somalis were killed by the fighting last year and hundreds of thousands driven from their homes.
