Somali Islamist hardliners behead 7 people

Somalia's hardline Islamist rebels beheaded seven people on Friday for being "Christians" and "spies" in the latest implementation of strict sharia law by the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab movement, witnesses said.

Though al Shabaab has carried out such punishments before in regions it controls, Friday's was thought to be the largest number of executions in one go, Somalis said.

"Al Shabaab told us that they were beheaded for reasons they described as being Christian followers and spies," said one relative to Reuters, who gave his name only as Aden, after the executions in the south-central town of Baidoa.

Resident Madey Doyow told AP he saw seven headless bodies in a truck being guarded by militia members in the southwestern town of Baidoa.

"The people who were guarding the vehicle told us they were beheaded for violating Islamic law," he said. The victims had come from different parts of the southwestern Bay and Bakool regions, he said.

A woman named Miriam, who asked that her last name be withheld to protect her from reprisals, sobbed as she said in a phone call that four bodies, including her husband's, had been brought to the police station in Baidoa. The location of the other three was unclear.

Source:Ecoterra, July 10, 2009

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