Somali Islamists ban UN food from rebel-held areas

[David]

AP


NAIROBI, Kenya – An extremist Islamic group is blocking food deliveries to hundreds of thousands of hungry Somalis, officials said Monday, after the militants accused aid agencies of secretly supporting those who have renounced Islam.

Britain also said Monday it will ban Somalia's most dangerous extremist Islamic group, al-Shabab, an action already taken by the U.S. State Department in 2008 when it designated the group a terrorist organization. Al-Shabab is believed to have links with al-Qaida.

In Britain, which is home to one of the largest Somali communities in Europe, Monday's order by Home Secretary Alan Johnson to ban al-Shabab would make membership in the group a criminal offense. It would also bar Britons from raising money for the group. Johnson's order must be approved by Parliament, but that is largely a formality.

Terror experts have recently expressed concern that al-Shabab may be recruiting and raising money from the Somali community in the U.K. Britain's most recent census put the number of Somalis living in the U.K. at about 43,000, but immigration experts believe the true figure is far higher. Somali residents say that number could be upward of 100,000, many of them without proper documentation.

Al-Shabab has attacked aid workers, extorted money from aid agencies and their statement Sunday affirms that they continue to be an impediment to humanitarian work in Somalia, said Karl Wycoff, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary for African affairs.

On Sunday, al-Shabab said it would prohibit the U.N.'s World Food Program from distributing food in areas under its control because it says the food undercuts farmers selling recently harvested crops.

It also accused the agency of handing out food unfit for human consumption and of secretly supporting "apostates," or those who have renounced Islam.

Wycoff said the U.S. has been concerned, along with other governments, about whether some of the humanitarian aid being distributed in Somalia has ended up in the hands of al-Shabab.

The U.S. and other governments have been talking about how to ensure that does not happen while keeping aid flowing, but those discussions may no longer be relevant because of recent al-Shabab actions, Wycoff said.

"It seems to me that those (discussions) have in essence been overtaken by the Shabab's increase in violence against humanitarian workers, and they're in essence throwing humanitarian community out of key areas," Wycoff said.

Militants from al-Shabab have blocked trucks carrying food from passing through a checkpoint in the Afgooye corridor near the capital, Mogadishu, for the past two weeks, said Peter Smerdon, a spokesman for WFP.

Al-Shabab and allied Islamic groups control most of southern Somalia, including a large part of Mogadishu. Together with its allies it is trying to seize territory in central Somalia.

Afgooye has the largest concentration of displaced people in the country. It is nominally controlled by the insurgent group Hizbul Islam but al-Shabab also operates roadblocks there.

The World Food Program pulled out of al-Shabab-controlled areas in southern and central Somalia in January following the group's demands that included the firing of female aid workers, payments for protection and buying food to be distributed from local merchants. WFP said it did not expect the suspension to have a devastating impact immediately because harvests are imminent, but hunger is expected to increase after March unless operations are resumed.

"WFP is determined to help the people of Somalia in need of assistance regardless of who controls the area in which they live as long as it is safe for our staff to do so," Smerdon said.

Even in the best years, arid Somalia is only able to produce enough food for 40 percent of its people. In the last five years, that figure has dropped to about 30 percent, Smerdon said. If WFP bought food locally instead of importing it, the action would drive up prices locally and make more families dependent on aid, he said. The Horn of Africa nation has been plagued by fighting and humanitarian suffering for nearly two decades since the collapse of the central government in 1991. Some 3.7 million people — nearly half of the population — need aid.