HOODED radical Islamic insurgents yesterday used machetes to slice off a hand and a foot from each of four men in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, as punishment for theft, witnesses said.
The men screamed in pain, and some of the estimated 300 spectators – compelled to attend by the al-Shabaab fighters – vomited as the amputations were in progress.
An ad-hoc court set up by the hardline al-Shabaab movement had earlier this week fo
und the men, aged 18 to 25, guilty of stealing mobile phones and guns from residents in several Mogadishu suburbs.
"We have carried out this sentence under the Islamic religion and we will punish like this everyone who carries out these acts," said al-Shabaab official Sheikh Ali Mohamud Fidow.
The punishments, which leading international human rights groups pleaded unsuccessfully with al-Shabaab to forego, have sent tremors through western diplomatic and intelligence communities, which have been monitoring an upsurge in al-Qaeda-style activities throughout much of northern, western and eastern Africa.
Al-Shabaab openly expresses its support for al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, although intelligence sources said it has proved hard to identify what its formal links, if any, are to al-Qaeda.
What is certain is that al-Shahaab and similar groups in countries such as Algeria, Mauritania, Mali and Niger take their inspiration from bin Laden and receive support from a variety of Middle Eastern jihadists.
The United States, alarmed by the rise of al-Shahaab, this month dispatched a shipload of arms and ammunition to the beleaguered government of Somalia. US and western alarm will have been intensified by the killing this week of an American aid worker by a group purporting to be al-Qaeda's North Africa branch.
The TV station al-Jazeera said it had received a recorded statement from al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb in which the group said 39-year-old Christopher Leggett was killed for allegedly trying to covert Muslims to Christianity. "Two knights of the Islamic Maghreb succeeded Tuesday morning at 8am to kill the infidel American Christopher Leggett for his Christianising activities," the statement said.
Islamic insurgents killed five Algerian paramilitary police and kidnapped two others in an ambush on Monday, several Algerian newspapers reported.
The insurgents cut their victims' throats and escaped with the two hostages as well as weapons and police uniforms, the independent El Watan newspaper cited witnesses as saying.
Algeria has seen an upsurge in violent attacks in the past few weeks including an ambush last week in which the authorities said 18 policemen and one civilian were killed.
On 31 May British tourist Edwin Dyer was executed in Mali by a group claiming to be Algeria's al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb.
The group said it had carried out its threat to kill Dyer – who was kidnapped in January in the border area between Mali and Niger – after Britain failed to meet its demand to release Abu Qatada, a Jordanian militant reputed to be the European envoy of bin Laden. Unconfirmed reports from Mali said Mr Dyer had been beheaded.
A top Obama administration official, quoted by the Washington Post, said the sending of the arms shipment to Somalia signalled the US president's intent to thwart a takeover of the Horn of African state by al-Qaeda-tied Islamic rebels. The United Nations Security Council, which had imposed an arms embargo on Somalia, confirmed it had agreed a waiver for the American arms delivery.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: "A decision was made at the highest level to ensure the (Somalia] government does not fall and that everything is done to strengthen government security forces to counter the rebels."
When a moderate Islamist was elected Somalia's new president in January there was hope he could achieve reconciliation with hardliners intent on imposing a strict version of Islamic law on their countrymen.
Al Shabaab's strict practices have shocked many Somalis, who are traditionally moderate, easy-going Sufi Muslims, although residents give the insurgents credit for restoring order to regions they control.
