Al-Shabab Thugs Steal Somali Children

One recent morning outside of the Somali capital of Mogadishu, Al-Shabab militants linked to al Qaeda loaded 700 displaced children onto buses, as their parents and the staff of Dr. Hawa Abdi’s hospital and camp looked on in horror. There was no guarantee that the children would ever return. In Somalia, it’s a common sight to see children younger than 12, awkwardly cradling Kalashnikovs twice their size, man the frontlines of a murky and escalating war that pits a powerless U.S.-backed transitional government against a well-armed group of mercenary killers and freelance gunmen...more