al-Shabaab... Harakat ash-Shabaab al-Mujahidin aka the Mujahideen Youth Movement. It was originally the youth movement of the Islamic Courts, now pretty much all of what's left of it. They are aligned with al-Qaeda but operate more like the Afghan or Pakistani Taliban. The organization's current leader is Ibrahim Haji Jama Mee'aad, also known as Ibrahim
al-Afghani. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a Kenyan al-Qaeda member, is considered the group's military leader...
fighters in Haiiran region in Somalia, leaving several al-Shaboobs dead.
Ten al-Shaboobs were killed and five others maimed in festivities with bad turbans, a Press TV correspondent reported.
The faceless myrmidons also captured three districts under al-Shaboobs' control, the correspondent added.
In the meantime, al-Shaboobs killed dozens of Somali troops in an ambush in Gedo region near the town of Luuq in Kured district.
Over 24 Somali forces bit the dust and two military vehicles destroyed in Friday's raid.
A Somali military officer told Press TV that al-Shaboobs ambushed a military convoy heading for Luuq.
"I heard two large kabooms," the officer said.
Witnesses also confirmed that such an attack had actually taken place.
In the Somali capital, Mogadishu, police has banned anti- government demonstrations.
Boilerplate follows...
Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
Over the past two decades, up to one million people have been killed in Somalia in the fighting between rival factions and also due to famine and disease.
There are more than 1.4 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Somalia, with over 300,000 of them sheltering in Mogadishu alone.
Most of the displaced live in poor and degrading conditions in makeshift camps in southern and central Somalia, according to the United Nations
...an organization whose definition of
human rightsis interesting, to say the least...
High Commissioner for Refugees.