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Publication: Yahoo News
Date: September 17, 2006
URL: http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060917/3/2q1dt.html
Somali Islamist militia shot in the air on Sunday to disperse hundreds of youths watching an English Premiership soccer match, with two people injured in the melee, witnesses said.
Somalis have welcomed the Islamists' pacification of their capital since they took it over in June, but they are increasingly unhappy at signs of religious extremism such as closing down public viewing of films and sport.
Nearly 400 youths packed into the Duale cinema during the afternoon for the big game between Chelsea and Liverpool.
But they scattered when 30 militiamen rolled up on a battlewagon and ordered them out, witnesses said.
When some of the youths started throwing stones and burning tyres in protest, the militiamen opened fire.
"Two youths were injured, one was shot in the thigh while the other sustained hand injuries," local resident Abdullahi Mohamed told Reuters on the scene.
"The youths started throwing stones at the militias who had to shoot in the sky. ... Maybe during the commotion the militia shot the youths accidentally," he added.
Critics of Somalia's Islamists, who control a southern swathe, say they plan a Taliban-style rule.
The movement's leaders want Somalia to be ruled by sharia law, but insist they have no intention of instituting a strict Taliban-style system. They say their main aim is to re-impose law and order after 15 years of anarchy and chaos since warlords ousted a dictator in 1991.
The Islamists' rise has challenged the aspirations of Somalia's Western-backed interim government, which is based in the provincial town of Baidoa and is militarily weak.
In a separate incident on Sunday, one man died when freelance militiamen in south Somalia clashed with bodyguards driving alongside Somali lawmaker Abdirashid Hidig, who was going towards the town of Dobley from the port of Kismayo.
"One militiaman was killed and another one wounded," local elder Abdi Inshar told Reuters. "We heard shots."
It was not immediately clear what caused the fight.
But fatal clashes between different militia groups are common in Somalia, often caused by local clan disputes.
Reuters