Somalia: Al-Shabab imposes new rules at houses in Kismayo " jihad tax"

The administration of Al-shabab in the southern seaport town of Kismayo some 500km south of the Somali capital Mogadishu has imposed each household in the town of Kismayo to pay fixed amount of money which they intend to financially boost their resistance against the African Union troops and the Somali government which they are frequently battling in Mogadishu.

For simplification of the collection of the money the officials of Al-Shabab have tagged certain numbers to partly of the houses in Kismayo, but before the completion of the tags the residences whose houses were tagged erased the number depicted on the front gates of their houses, and this has forced Al-Shabab officials to do the task from square one for the second time, but telling people that whoever erases the number depicted in the front part of his or her house will have rough time with them.

“From now henceforth our administration will not have patience with those who erase the numbers written on their gates but impatience, Kismayo consist of 5 sections and we know who has exactly done these erasing of the identification number these are the notorious youths come from the 5 sections of Kismayo, and we are going to deal with them with an iron fist” says Hassan Yakub the representative of Al-Shabab in Kismayo town.

The administration of Al-Shabab has categorized the amount of money which each household is supposes to pay after the end of every month. Each household living under the shelter of a concrete house is obliged to pay 300 Somali shillings which is equivalent to $10 if converted to USA currency, every family living in iron sheet made house is suppose to pay 200 Somali shillings and lastly each family sheltering under a thatch made house is suppose to pay 100 Somali shillings which is roughly $3.5 USA currency.