Author Archives: taffy

Nuclear riddle of missing ship as pirates demand a £1m ransom

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 Although there is no reported connection with Islam in this story, it has all the signs of being just that. So I will go out on a limb [a strong limb] and tag it with Islam. Arctic Sea

MailOnline…Pirates last night demanded a ransom of almost £1million for the release of the cargo ship which sparked an international search after vanishing from the English Channel a fortnight ago.

Police in Finland confirmed the ransom demand was made to the Finnish owners of the 4,000-ton Arctic Sea and that the case was now being treated as ‘a hijacking with aggravated extortion’.

They said the armed gang had warned they would pose a ‘threat to the life and health’ to the 15 Russian crewmen on board unless their demands are met.

The ransom demand came as The Mail on Sunday established radiation tests were carried out at the port of Pietarsaari in western Finland, where the Maltese-flagged ship Arctic Sea started its voyage.

The Turkish-built vessel, which was carrying £900,000 worth of timber, is feared to have been stormed by pirates looking for a ‘secret cargo’.

The fact that nuclear tests were conducted will fuel speculation that the ship did have a hidden cargo.

Enquiries by this newspaper have established that no checks were carried out on what was being transported in the hold prior to its departure from Finland on July 23.

And the FSB, the Russian security service, as well as MI5 have been involved in the investigation into the hijacked vessel.

Last night Finnish Detective Chief Superintendent Jan Nyholm said: ‘Yes, it is true that there has been a demand for ransom in cash and that it was made to the company which owns the ship, Solchart Management in Finland.’

Another police spokesman, Markku Ranta-Aho, said the ransom demand was for less than $1.5million (£900,000) – that it was ‘significant, but not huge’.

Finnish police also suggested the armed gang demanding the ransom were the same bandits who boarded the vessel off Sweden on July 24 – although other sources claimed it was a different group.

The police released the information after a news blackout during which they had tried to trace the ship, but did not say when the ransom demand was made. They said the hijackers had not been in touch with them.

It is the first time in modern maritime history that a ship has disappeared without trace in European shipping waters.

Until now, ship hijackings have been confined to Somali pirates seizing vessels off the coasts of Africa and in the Indian Ocean.

Yesterday there were reports that the Arctic Sea’s automatic identification system – which helps locate its whereabouts – briefly emitted a signal from the Bay of Biscay,
300 miles west of La Rochelle on France’s east coast. Continue Reading →

Iran Bahais face espionage trial

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Bahais IranBBC NEWS… Seven members of the Bahai faith in Iran are to go on trial on Tuesday on charges of spying for Israel and of “insulting sanctities”.

Six of the Bahais were arrested in May, 2008. The other one was arrested two months earlier. They were the leaders of the Bahais in Iran.

The Bahai faith is banned by the Islamic revolutionary leadership of Iran which considers it heretical.

Bahais claim some 300,000 members in Iran, where the faith originated.

Midnight raids

“The trial of the seven Bahais accused of spying for the Zionist regime of Israel and insulting sanctities will be held on Tuesday,” Hassan Haddad of the Tehran’s prosecutor office said, the official Iranian news agency reports.

Last year relatives of the six Bahai leaders arrested in May said they had been taken to Evin Prison in Tehran after intelligence ministry officers raided their homes in the middle of the night.

Hundreds of Bahai followers have been jailed and executed since Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979, the Bahai International Community says.

However, the government denies it has detained or executed people because of their faith.

The Bahais consider the man who founded their faith in the 19th Century, Bahaullah, to be a prophet.

A proposal Saudis can’t refuse

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eunice-lieveld-burka1guardian.co.uk…It may be the world’s most puritanical kingdom but there are still legal ways to have sex on the side.

Saudi Arabia’s conservative society stands divided on the issue of misyar, a no-strings marriage of convenience that has become increasingly popular in the kingdom.

Misyar is a form of marriage that allows couples to live separately but come together for sexual relations. For the women who accept it – spinsters, divorcees and widows – it’s a something-is-better-than-nothing option, though they waive almost all the rights that a normal Muslim marriage entitles them to. For men it offers an opportunity for a bit of fun on the side, in secret, and at a huge discount.

Reasons for popularity of misyar include the high cost of marriage – the dowry, several dinners, parties, decoration of a flat or a villa and the honeymoon. All this may set back the groom by several hundred thousand riyals. Misyar for cash-strapped men is a boon.

Hamdan, a Saudi colleague of mine back in Jeddah – distraught and depressed after the break-up of his first marriage – entered into a succession of misyar marriages. None lasted for more than six months. He confided that he had hoped to find a compatible partner for a permanent relationship but it didn’t work out. He also said that misyar wives are crafty and inclined to extract money and gifts. In his words: misyar marriages are not cost-effective. The colleague is now married again – in a normal marriage – and hopes to live happily ever after.

Thanks to Bluetooth technology, friendly websites and an abundance of furnished apartments in major cities like Riyadh and Jeddah, there are tales of misyar wives who have clandestinely entered into more than one misyar contract. These enlightened ladies say misyar husbands never tell their full-time wives about their relationships so why can’t misyar wives have similar arrangements? Clerics view this as a dangerous trend.

Website ads for misyar marriages often reveal the immaturity and desperation of those looking for partners:

 

• Young man, 21, excellent monthly income, seeks marriage as soon as possible to single girls up to 70 kgs, living in Jeddah.
• Saudi clerk, 38, from a well-known family, seeks pretty, white, delicate, businesswoman or clerk for misyar marriage. With Allah’s help, if things work out, the marriage will be official.
• Accountant, 30, seeks misyar marriage with Saudi woman. Age, experience, number of children, widow or single or divorced unimportant. What is important is her ability to satisfy the needs of a man who desires things permitted by religion (halal). Continue Reading →

Taliban vow to bomb polling booths

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The Times of India… KANDAHAR: The Taliban on Sunday threatened for the first time to attack Afghan polling stations, escalating their bid to derail key elections this week after striking Nato in the heart of Kabul. The threat was made in leaflets, dropped in villages in the south, and authenticated by a Taliban spokesman who said the militia would accelerate its bloody campaign of violence on the eve of polls.

“This is to inform respected residents that you must not take part in the polls so as not to become a victim of our operations, because we will use new tactics,” said one leaflet distributed in Kandahar. “All people are being informed that you must not rent out property to voting centres and if anyone did — even after elections — they may face problems”, they said.

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi confirmed the leaflets were authentic and that commanders were ordering the masses to boycott the vote. The leaflets marked the first direct threat from the rebels to attack polling sites.

The leaflets came even as supporters of the candidates came out in their thousands on Sunday. In his regional power base in the north, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, President Hamid Karzai’s main challenger, was mobbed by thousands of supporters who stormed a gate to surge into the compound where his helicopter touched down.

He was hoisted onto a pickup truck and driven through the town of Taloqan, surrounded by crowds of adoring supporters. “I told the crowd we have already won,” Abdullah said.

Karzai disappointed thousands of people in the southern city of Kandahar who were hoping he would make an appearance at a rally addressed by one of his half-brothers, Ahmad Wali Karzai, Kandahar’s provincial council chief. Kandahar is Karzai’s home town as well as the heartland of the Taliban, whose fighters have vowed to disrupt the poll with attacks.

Why Taliban leaders prefer dead diplomats

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The Guardian.co.uk…According to a Taliban spokesman the real target of the suicide bombing in Kabul was the American embassy

According to Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, the target of Saturday’s explosion in Kabul was not the headquarters of the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Afghanistan but the American embassy. This careful clarification reveals the insurgents’ strategic logic.

For weeks analysts have been puzzled by the apparent lack of a effort to disrupt the polls. The Taliban have, after all, made assaults on relatively poorly protected Afghan government officials a key element of their strategy. Yet other than a couple of raids and a few bombings nothing on the scale of the operations that the Taliban could launch if they wanted has been seen. The next few days may see this change but all the activities associated with the election have passed off with little interference.

Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban, has not made any confirmed public declarations about the election and the insurgents have limited themselves to a statement posted on their internet site which calls on Afghans to boycott the polls. There are some reports of local intimidation and some leaflets in mosques dissuading potential voters but little else. It is as if the Taliban high command has decided to make their presence felt but not fully engage.

There are several reasons for this. Continue Reading →

24 Palestinians Killed as Rival Islamic Groups Clash in Gaza

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Abdel-Latif MoussaVOA NEWS… At least 24 Palestinians have been killed and more than 120 wounded in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip during clashes between rival Islamic militant groups.

Hamas security forces launched a fierce assault on a mosque in Gaza, and the leader of a rival Islamic group inspired by al-Qaida was killed along with many of his armed followers. Hamas officials say more than a dozen gunmen from Jund Ansar Allah, or the Soldiers of the Followers of God, were killed, as well as several Hamas policemen and an 11-year-old girl.

Hamas accused the leader of the group, Abdel-Latif Moussa, of treason after he gave a fiery sermon at Friday prayers.

Moussa declared Gaza an Islamic emirate – challenging Hamas rule with a more radical form of Islam. Hamas says Moussa was killed when he blew up an explosives vest he was wearing during the shootout.Israel has charged that al-Qaida, the group responsible for the September 11th terrorist attacks on the United States, has infiltrated Gaza from the outside. But Ihab Ghussein, a spokesman for the Hamas Interior Ministry, denied that.

Ghussein said Moussa’s group was Palestinian and had no external ties. He said the group has carried out bomb attacks on Internet cafés and wedding parties, in what he described as a misguided attempt to impose Islamic Law on Gaza.

Since many Palestinians are secular, especially in the West Bank, Hamas has been reluctant to impose strict Islamic Law on Gaza, saying it prefers to set a pious example for people to follow.

Hamas seized control of Gaza in the Palestinian civil war two years ago, routing the Fatah forces of President Mahmoud Abbas, who now heads a more moderate government in the West Bank. Since then Hamas has violently quelled any resistance by Fatah and other groups in Gaza.

Responding to the latest clashes, Hamas said it put down a coup by “outlaws.”

Three men who groomed young girl for sex jailed for 18 years.

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The British press being what it is [dhimmi] will not post the pictures of the men involved. We are not the British press so here they are.

Hat tip to Tonyukmma

Mo's MinionsYORKSHIRE POST…Published Date: 17 July 2009

 THREE men who groomed a vulnerable teenage girl for sex were jailed for a total of 18 years yesterday.Mohammed Zackriya, 21, of Springfield Road, Keighley, Mohammed Taj, 37 of Broughton Road, Skipton and Mohammed Shabir (Snr), a 36-year-old, father-of-five, of Hawk Street, Keighley, were convicted of 28 sexual offences on Thursday against the girl who cannot be named for legal reasons.Two other men, Abid Ali, 27, of Cark Road, Keighley and Raj Mohammed Shabir, 32, of Neville Street, Keighley, were cleared of all the sexual charges against them.

The jury were directed by Judge Peter Benson to return a not guilty verdict on another man, Shahid Iqbal, 25, of Nightingale Street, Keighley, half-way through proceedings.

Yesterday he jailed Zackriya for eight years, Taj for five years and Shabir for five years.

Shabir was also given an additional six month sentence for contempt of court after he ”behaved in a quite disgraceful way” following a foul-mouthed outburst when a witness gave evidence.

All three were told they would have to sign the Sex Offenders’ Register indefinitely and made subject to orders restricting their association with children.

During a lengthy trial Bradford Crown Court was told that the teenager was targeted by the six men when she was aged 14 to15 because she “craved attention” before they carried out a series of cynical sexual offences. Continue Reading →

Muslim Gang kills seven in Russian sauna

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ChechnyaBBC NEWS…Russian police are hunting gunmen who killed seven women at a sauna and four policemen at a checkpoint in the troubled southern region of Dagestan.

The attack happened on Thursday in the town of Buynaksk, 41km (25 miles) from the regional capital Makhachkala.

Police say they know the identities of some of the gunmen, who fled into a forest after the attack.

Separately, four policemen and two militants were killed in a clash near Grozny, in neighbouring Chechnya.

Moscow has been keen to portray Chechnya and the region as an area returning to normal after years of unrest.

But these latest attacks form part of a wider pattern: a growing anti-Kremlin, Islamist insurgency that appears to be spreading across the North Caucasus, the BBC’s Gabriel Gatehouse reports.

On Friday police shot and killed three militants near a village in Dagestan’s Derbent district, officials say.

In Thursday’s attack in Dagestan, at least 15 gunmen opened fire on a traffic police checkpoint on the edge of Buynaksk, Russian media quoted local police as saying.

The gunmen are reported to have hijacked a minibus, which they later abandoned.

They went on to attack a sauna at a nearby health complex, killing seven women workers there.

Dagestan has been plagued by violence in recent years, much of it linked to the conflict between security forces and separatist rebels in Chechnya, a mainly Muslim Russian republic.

Russian forces have fought two wars against Islamist rebels in Chechnya since 1994. The conflicts claimed more than 100,000 lives and left it in ruins.

Clashes with militants are also common in Ingushetia, which borders on Chechnya to the west.

MP defends Muslim wedding walkout

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London MP FitzpatrickBBC NEWS… A government minister has defended his decision to walk out of a Muslim wedding in east London because he was told he must sit apart from his wife.

Jim Fitzpatrick, food, farming and environment minister, left a ceremony at London Muslim Centre, Whitechapel.

The MP for Poplar and Canning Town told the BBC the segregation showed a degree of intolerance in the East End.

But a spokesman for the centre said the segregation was at the request of the couple getting married.

Mr Fitzpatrick, whose constituency is home to a large Muslim community, blamed the tough stance on the Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) – an organisation that calls for Sharia law – which is based in the same building.

He told the BBC’s Today: “This is a very exceptional occasion, it’s a new occurrence.

“It perhaps demonstrates that there is a degree of intolerance – certainly exclusion rather than inclusion which we are trying to build in the East End.

“Certainly the vast number of my Muslim constituents who’ve contacted me have expressed sympathy that I was placed in this predicament.”

Mr Fitzpatrick is the local MP and a family friend of bride Mahbuba Kamali and groom Bodrul Islam.

The couple said they decided on a segregated wedding out of respect for some of their elderly relatives.

Mrs Kamali said: “It was a private party so if we want to make these requests we are not imposing it and saying we want it to go nationwide and for everyone to be segregated.

“If we wanted to we could have had a fancy dress party and ask all our guests to come this way, and I’m sure he would not refuse.”

‘Hijacked politically’

Mr Islam said he was “upset and embarrassed” by the incident.

“I don’t think anyone deserves to have their wedding hijacked for political purposes, or any other purposes,” he said.

Mohammad Shakir, a spokesman for the centre, said: “Segregated weddings have always been popular in the Muslim community – the London Muslim Centre has facilitated them for over five years.

“It is part of the attraction for Muslim families so they can celebrate their happy day in a religious atmosphere.

“We have always allowed non-Muslim guests to be seated together without segregation, but this is entirely at the discretion of the families who hire the halls.”

Mosque gun battle rages in Gaza

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BBC NEWS… At least six people have been killed and dozens injured in a fierce gun battle in Gaza, emergency services say.

Eyewitnesses say hundreds of Hamas fighters and policemen surrounded then raided a mosque where followers of a radical Islamist cleric were holed up.

They had fired rocket-propelled grenades at the mosque in Rafah, near the Egyptian border, witnesses say.

It is thought that at least 100 supporters of the al-Qaeda-linked group Warriors of God are inside.

Hamas said a grenade fired from the mosque killed one of its fighters. The other fatalities were reported to be gunmen, and a child was also killed.

Fighting pledge

Earlier, during Friday prayers, hundreds of worshippers at Ibn-Taymiyah mosque declared Gaza an “Islamic emirate”.

The mosque’s imam – Abdel-Latif Moussa – and armed supporters swore to fight to the death rather than hand over authority of the mosque to Hamas.

The Salafi Warriors of God, or Jund Ansar Allah, gained some prominence two months ago when it staged a failed attack on a border crossing between Gaza and Israel.

The group is very critical of Hamas, which governs Gaza, accusing the Islamist group of not being Islamist enough.

Hamas has cracked down on al-Qaeda-inspired groups in the past.

It is concerned they may attract more extremist members, and has forbidden anyone except what it describes as Hamas security personnel to carry weapons in Gaza.

Sectarian violence hits Pakistani town

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More on last weeks slaughter of Christians by Pakistani Muslims.

Of course it is bad that Christians died,” he added. “But they provoked the Muslims here. I don’t understand why everyone is on their side.”

On a street in the small Punjabi town of Gojra, house after house stands gutted and looted.

Hameed family. Father, son and relative.

Hameed family. Father, son and relative.

BBC NEWS…One home in particular is the focus of attention. The windows and doors are gone, what is left of the furniture lies gnarled inside, and some of the ceilings have collapsed. People are peering into a small bedroom at the back of the building.

It is from here that the charred bodies of six members of the Hameed family, from Pakistan’s minority Christian community, were recovered. The youngest of the dead was four-year-old Mousa.

We found his father, Almass Hameed, 49, in a crowded hospital ward nearby.

‘Shocked and crying’

“He was such a bright boy. His teachers complained that he was cheeky at times, but nobody could doubt how clever he was. But now he’s gone,” Mr Hameed said, breaking down.

He described how an angry Muslim mob came through the area, known here as the Christian Colony.

“I think there were thousands,” he said. “My elderly father went out to see what was happening and they shot and killed him. We were all shocked and crying. Before we knew it, they were breaking into the house.”

Mr Hameed explained how he and nine other members of the family hid in the bedroom as the house was over-run.

“We could hear them smashing everything and dividing our belongings amongst themselves,” he said. “Then they started beating on the door saying they would teach us a lesson and burn us alive.”

Soon after, a fire was raging through his house.

“We just couldn’t breathe,” he said. “I grabbed my eldest son and managed to get out of the room through the flames, my brother came out with one of my daughters, but the rest were stuck and we had no way of rescuing them.”

As well as his father and Mousa, Mr Hameed lost his 11 year-old daughter, his wife, a brother, a sister-in-law and her mother.

“It was like the most horrific movie. They destroyed our lives.”

‘Fired shots’

Tensions had risen after allegations that Christians in the nearby village of Korrian had torn up and burnt pages of the Koran at a wedding a few days earlier.

They started it,” 19-year-old Omar Ali Raza said in Gojra’s marketplace.

“We Muslims are the victims. We gathered to protest about what they did to the Koran in Korrian and just wanted to walk through their area, but they threw stones at us and fired shots.”

“Of course it is bad that Christians died,” he added. “But they provoked the Muslims here. I don’t understand why everyone is on their side.”

But an elderly Muslim man passing by interrupts. “The responsibility is with the one who actually burns the Koran, not all Christians,” he said. “Here, we live together, and there were no problems before this.”

As it happens, a local police chief, Ahmed Javaid, said he believed that the claim that Christians desecrated the Koran was not true in the first place. Continue Reading →

Muslim Teen Who Converted to Christianity Says Family Threatened to Kill Her

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 FOX NEWS… An Ohio teenager says she ran away from home to Florida because her family threatened to kill her for converting from Islam to Christianity, local media reported.

Rifqa Bary, 17, testified Monday at a custody hearing in Orlando that she’d recently changed religions and is worried her relatives will do something drastic, according to WFTV in Orlando and Central Florida News 13.

“They have to kill me because I’m a Christian. It’s an honor (issue),” the girl told WFTV.

Such threats are common, even in the United States, her attorney, Rosa Gonzalez, told News 13.

“She says her life is in danger and she could be killed in an honor killing,” Gonzalez said after the hearing — which was held because the teenager’s parents are trying to regain custody of her.

Rifqa, a non-citizen whose parents are from Sri Lanka, has for several weeks been staying with an Orlando couple who are pastors of a new Christian church there. She met them on a Facebook prayer group.

Her father denied his daughter’s allegations to NBC 4 in Orlando, saying he never threatened to kill his daughter because she rejected Islam.

He was in Florida for a court hearing, but was reportedly traveling back to Ohio Tuesday.

The Florida Department of Children and Families currently has custody of her, but ultimately, Ohio authorities will decide where the teen should live.

Islamic Terrorist Confesses in German Court

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More terror charges against converts to Islam. With the initiation test that Islam asks for it is no wonder they do most of their recruiting in prisons.

flag_burningDUESSELDORF, Germany  —  The alleged ringleader of a radical Islamic terrorist cell whose plot to attack U.S. targets in Germany was foiled by authorities told a court Monday his group wanted to do as much damage to Americans as possible.

Fritz Gelowicz told the court he and co-defendant Adem Yilmaz had trained in a terrorist camp in Pakistan — initially planning to try and carry out attacks in the region, but then decided they could do more damage to U.S. targets in Europe at less risk to themselves.

“With less cost we could achieve much greater damage,” he said.

Gelowicz and Yilmaz, both 29, and co-defendants Daniel Martin Schneider, 22, and Attila Selek, 23 are suspected of operating as a German cell of the radical Islamic Jihad Union — a group the U.S. State Department says was responsible for coordinated bombings outside the U.S. and Israeli embassies in Uzbekistan in July 2004. Continue Reading →

Revealed: Jihadis thrice attacked Pakistan nuclear sites

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Pakistan's plutonium production reactor at Khushab.

Pakistan's plutonium production reactor at Khushab.

From The Times of India

WASHINGTON: Pakistan’s nuclear facilities have already been attacked at least thrice by its home-grown extremists and terrorists in little reported incidents over the last two years, even as the world remains divided over the safety of the nuclear weapons in the troubled country, according to western analysts.

The incidents, tracked by Shaun Gregory, a professor at Bradford University in UK, include an attack on the nuclear missile storage facility at Sargodha on November 1, 2007; an attack on a nuclear airbase at Kamra by a suicide bomber on December 10, 2007; and perhaps most significantly, the August 20, 2008 attack when Taliban suicide bombers blew up several entry points to one of the armament complexes at the Wah cantonment, considered one of Pakistan’s main nuclear weapons assembly.

These attacks have occurred even as Pakistan has taken steps to secure its nuclear arsenal against potential attacks, particularly by the US and India, says Gregory.

In fact, the attacks have received so little attention that Peter Bergen, the eminent terrorism expert who reviewed Gregory’s paper, first published in West Point’s Counter Terrorism Center Sentinel, said “he (Gregory) points out something that was news to me (and shouldn’t have been) which is that a series of attacks on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons facilities have already happened.”

Pakistan insists that its nuclear weapons are fully secured and there is no chance of them falling into the hands of terrorists. But Gregory, while detailing the steps Islamabad has taken to protect them against Indian and US attacks, asks if the geographical location of Pakistan’s principal nuclear weapons infrastructure, which is mainly in areas dominated by al-Qaida and Taliban, makes it more vulnerable to internal attacks.

Gregory points out that when Pakistan was developing its nuclear weapons infrastructure in the 1970s and 1980s, its principal concern was the risk that India would overrun its nuclear weapons facilities in an armored offensive if the facilities were placed close to the Pakistan-India border. As a result, Pakistan, with a few exceptions, chose to locate much of its nuclear weapons infrastructure to the north and west of the country and to the region around Islamabad and Rawalpindi.

Somali Islamists strike gold & silver

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An unexpected find of the precious metals is being harvested in Somalia. The proceeds from this “gift of Allah” will most likely go to financing the jihad against the government of Somalia. Allah u Akbar says their leader.

SomaliFightersMOGADISHU (Reuters) – Somali Islamist group al Shabaab is forcibly removing gold and silver teeth from residents in southern Somalia because it says they contravene strict religious law, locals from a coastal town said on Monday.

 Residents in Marka say al Shabaab has been rounding up anyone seen with a silver or gold tooth and taking them to a masked man who then rips them out using basic tools.

 “I never thought al Shabaab would see my denture as a sin. They took me to their station and removed my silver tooth,” resident Bashir told Reuters.

 “I met several men and women whose dentures were being pulled out by a masked man they called a doctor. The doctor used a pincer or his gloved hand depending on the strength of the tooth,” Bashir said.

 “As you smile your silver tooth accuses you. I was at a counter with my friend when three armed al Shabaab ordered me to follow them,” he added. “I am afraid they want to make money from taking all this precious metal.”

 Al Shabaab officials declined to comment.

 The Islamist group says the gold and silver teeth are used for fashion and beauty, which is against strict interpretations of Islam, residents told Reuters.

 The crude dental work has fueled fears of health risks.

 “Pulling or replacing teeth may lead to loss of blood and neurological damage. The tooth may break and the remaining piece may cause sepsis,” Mohamed Mohamud, dean of faculty of medicine at Mogadishu’s Benadir University, told Reuters.

 “Worse, careless treatment may spread HIV,” he added.

 Al Shabaab, which means “Youth” in Arabic, is an al Qaeda-inspired militant group that has taken control of large swathes of south and central Somalia.

 The group’s hardline interpretation of Islamic law has shocked many Somalis, who are traditionally moderate Muslims. Some residents, however, give the insurgents credit for restoring order to the regions under their control.

 In June, al Shabaab officials in one of the group’s Mogadishu strongholds ordered four teenagers to each have a hand and a foot cut off as punishments for robbery.