Somalis' Choice: Join Islamists or Flee

DADAAB, Kenya -- By the time Mohamed Abdi Ibrahim decided to leave Somalia, life in the southern city of Kismaayo had become, as he put it with consummate understatement, "complicated." Young men there had long shouldered AK-47 assault rifles and joined clan militias. But as an Islamist militia known as al-Shabab took control this year, it had become a place where boys were paid $50 to throw ..more..http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/21/AR2008122102340.html?hpid=topnews

Somalia's radicals poised to take over

BY THE time Mohamed Abdi Ibrahim decided to leave Somalia, life in the southern city of Kismaayo had become, as he put it with consummate understatement, "complicated". Young men there had long shouldered AK-47 assault rifles and joined clan militias. But as an Islamist militia known as al-Shabab took control this year, it had become a place where boys were paid $50 to throw bombs, soccer fields served as militia training camps and Islamist leaders walked into classrooms to take names of potential recruits.
Ibrahim and two friends fled a few months ago, just after the Shabab began beating people not attending prayers and just before it publicly stoned to death a 13-year-old girl for adultery. more..http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2008/1223/1229728474729.html

Somali fighters warn Western powers

An armed group battling Ethiopian forces in Somalia has told Al Jazeera it will take its fight beyond the country once it defeats its rivals."We are fighting to lift the burden of oppression and colonialism from our country ... We are defending ourselves against enemies who attacked us," Abu Mansoor, the leader of al-Shabab, said.
"Once we are successful with that we will fight on and finish oppression elsewhere on earth," he said. more..http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2008/12/2008121974021291686.html