Al-Shabab Threats To Kill Somali Journalist

Mogadishu, November 12, 2007 – The Young Islamic Movement known as ‘Al-Shabab’ in Somalia recently threatened to kill the editor of Waagacusub.com, one of the Somali widely read websites after they accused him of ‘setting flame among the Mujahidsts’, sources say on Monday.

In a statement posted on their website on 9 November, the Al-Shabab said Dahir Abdulle Alasow is a great spy and sought to bring the Islamists against one another publishing fabricated news stories.

The website, www.almujaahid.com which also posted the photo of Dahir Alasow said the journalist spread a news over that the Al-Shabab’s spokesman Sheik Mukhtar Robow Abu-Mansur was fired from the post.

The Association of Somali Journalist (ASOJ) condemned the death threat by the Al-Shabab on Dahir Alasow as in violation of human rights.

“Abu-Mansur emailed and telephoned me many times and threatened that he will kill me and I answered to him ‘you are not closer to Allah than me and you are not the life taker,” said Dahir Alasow, the chairman of ASOJ and editor of Waagacusub.com.

Mr. Alasow, who is now in Nairobi, Kenya in exile, left Mogadishu mid this May after the transitional federal government and Al-Shabab Islamic movement threatened to kill him and had been in Hargeysa, Somaliland for a while.

Similarly, the TFG issued a death warning against Dahir on 13 October this year after he was accused of publishing report on the conflict between Somali’s interim president Abdillahi Yusuf and his Prime Minister Ali Gedi and the president wanted to sack the premier.

On 1st December 2005, two years ago, the Al-Furqan Islamic Courts under the control Islamic Courts Union issued arrest sentence on Dahir Alasow over baseless charges.

Dahir Alasow is known to publish sensitive and untold news stories which made the Waagacusub site more popular among the readers.

Eight journalists were killed and dozens more were wounded in Somalia this year alone while many others fled their country.

Source: SomaliNet