A Somali police officer recently received an unexpected summons from the enemy. An unknown caller ordered him to report to a town outside the capital, Mogadishu, where the extremist group al-Shabab would settle a dispute between him and his brother. The caller assured the officer he would be safe even if he showed up in uniform…
Overcoming his fear, Khadar traveled to meet with a panel of four bearded men in an office made from iron sheets. The al-Shabab men wanted to know why he was denying his brothers a share of the land they inherited from their father.
“After an hour and a half of debate, the men directed me to distribute the inheritance among my brothers,” Khadar recalled in an interview with The Associated Press, withholding his last name for safety concerns.
Khadar complied, an extraordinary gesture to an armed group that continues to pose a deadly threat to his police colleagues and his government at large.
The al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab is projecting authority and asserting a wider role in public life in this troubled Horn of Africa nation, underlining the extent of the challenge Africa’s deadliest Islamic extremist group presents to the newly elected government of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. The threats range beyond regular attacks on places frequented by officials and include militant control of vast territory where federal officials don’t dare go and can’t even collect taxes.
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