Tag Archives: Somalia

The African Taliban. The Islamic Courts bans khat and cigarettes during Ramadan. Islam is now the official religion and conversion is banned. A karate instructor and six students are arrested for being ‘involved in something against the Islamic ideology.’ The ICU conducted its first public execution.

Security has been tightened in Baidoa after the suicide attacks against President Ahmed. The CIA (more likely the FBI) is sending a team to investigate the suicide attack. The Jamestown Foundation believes Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed is a ‘moderate.’

The Islamic Courts will provide “military training needed to wage jihad” to students from 8th grade and up. Hassan Turki, wanted by the U.S. government, is openly operating in Somalia. The Somali interim government killed 6 and captured 2 suspects in the presidential bombing attack.

The ICU targets interim president Abdullahi Yusuf with two bombs in Baidoa. The Islamic Courts killed a 13 year old boy and wounded three others while breaking up a group watching a soccer on television. The ICU also murdered a 70 year old Italian nun hours after the Pope spoke on Islam. An ICU linked […]

Baidoa police use gunfire to disperse an Islamist demonstration in the city. The flow of Somalis fleeing the ICU advance on the southern port city of Kisaymo triples. The African Union is waiting for funding before deploying its 8,000 man peacekeeping force.

An EU official reports the army of the Islamic Courts is marching on the southern port city of Kismayo. The head of the Juba Valley Coalition denies the ICU is marching on the city. The African Union “will endorse an ambitious peacekeeping force for Somalia.”

The Islamic Courts are training recruits in the in Middle Jubba region, about 500km south of Mogadishu. An email chain in private security contractor circles indicates the U.S. is conducting black operations inside Somalia. IGAD continues to plan to deploy a Somali peacekeeping force.

The Islamic Courts closed a radio station in Jawhar and banned music. Hundreds protest the murder of an unarmed man said to have been killed by an ICU member. The UN has arrived in Mogadishu to negotiate the resumption of aidprograms.

A militia leader in Baidoa called on the interim government to leave peacefully or they will be ejected by force. Somalia’s Islamic leaders, including Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys and Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, are headed to Libya to visit Gadhafi. The ICU will only accept an Islamic constitution. The United Nations will reopen its office […]

Sheik Ahmed Sherif, the head of the ICU, held talks “with US and European diplomats during a recent visit to Kenya.” The purpose was very likely an attempt to split him from Aweys. ICU organized veterans to protest against foreign intervention. During the rally, Sherif “warned Uganda not to send troops to Somalia.”

The ICU and Somali government troops clashed over control over Baidoa’s airport, resulting in 12 dead. The weak Somali government is asking the ICU military to integrate into the government forces as the ICU meets with a senior UN representative. The ICU will hold a rally to protest any IGAD intervention.

al Qaeda connected Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the leader of the radical Islamic Courts in Somalia is “prepared to talk peace” as talks between the ICU and the Transitional Government. The ICU has suspended “all trade and public transportation during prayer times.” The autonomous region of Puntland is beginning to arrest ICU friendly Islamist clerics. […]