REBELS CUT OFF HANDS

On Wednesday, hardline al Shabaab fighters amputated the right hands of two teenage Mogadishu boys they said had been convicted of theft by a militant sharia court. "We whipped another teenager for raping a lady.

We also fined him $150 and expelled him from Mogadishu for a year," said Sheikh Abdul Basid Mohamed, an al Shabaab judge in the city.

The group has carried out executions, floggings and amputations before, mostly in the southern port of Kismayu. Movies and soccer games are banned in the rebels' territory, and men and women cannot travel together on public transport. Al Shabaab's strict practices have shocked many Somalis, who are traditionally moderate Muslims, but some residents credit the insurgents with restoring order to regions they control.

Violence has killed more than 18,000 Somalis since the start of 2007 and driven another 1.5 million from their homes. That has triggered one of the world's worst aid emergencies, with the number of people needing help leaping 17.5 percent in a year to 3.76 million or half the population.

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