Posted on 06/26/2006 4:25:24 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
SOMALIA'S newly powerful Islamists say they will stone to death five rapists, in what some fear is the latest sign of a plan to install a hardline Islamic authority like Afghanistan's Taliban.
The punishments, like others carried out by the Islamists in their sharia courts in the capital Mogadishu and elsewhere, follow the naming of Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys - on a U.N. list of al Qaeda associates - to a top post over the weekend.
Mr Aweys, a former army colonel who in the 1990s led militant Islamists in failed campaigns in Somalia but has denied any al Qaeda links, was named head of the Council of Islamic Courts.
The United States would have no contact with him, but has made no decision about relations with the group as a whole, said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
"Of course we are not going to work with somebody like that and of course we would be troubled if this is an indicator of the direction that this group would go in," McCormack said.
"But let's wait, let's see what the collective leadership of this group does."
The council is a parliament for the Islamists, whose well-trained militias seized Mogadishu from US-backed warlords on June 5 after months of fighting that killed at least 350.
The rapists were to be stoned to death in Jowhar, which the Islamists took in the last phase of a campaign that saw them seize a strategic swathe of Somalia from the coastal capital northwest nearly to the Ethiopian border.
"Five men who raped four women on June 22 will be stoned to death today (Monday) in accordance with the Islamic sharia. They have pleaded guilty to the crime and also have been identified by the victims," Siyad Mohamed, a militia leader linked to Islamic courts, said to Reuters by phone from Jowhar.
Mr Mohamed later said the execution had been delayed as the courts looked to arrest a sixth suspect. He said it was not clear when the sentences would be carried out.
The Islamist victory dealt an embarrassing public setback to Washington's counter-terrorism campaign, as its support for the much-despised warlords gave the Islamists popular backing.
The Islamists at first tried to present a moderate face to the world, saying they only wanted to end anarchy and restore peace lost since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991.
Asked about the appointment of Mr Aweys, Somalia's interim government was circumspect: "It is the internal business of the courts," government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said.
Everybody must get stoned.
I think this falls under the broken clock rule.
An interesting turn of events - stoning the criminals rather than the victims.
If you're one of the Islamofascists, it isn't rape - it is punishment for the women being too sensual.
This is one of those punishments that only applies to everybody "else".
Yeah, rapist, rapee, rapee's next of kin...Jeez, don't they have cable or something?
Not mentioned in the report is the fact that they like to kill the victims too. The honor killings.
But isn't rape the Islamist favorite thingy they do to infidels?
Didn't Mohammed rape the wifes of the men he had tourtured to death to find out where their treasures were hidden?
Where did they find the 4 Muslim male witnesses to support the conviction?!
Those women were probably related to someone that matters
As a nice wordplay....
...as a gang of vicious 9th Circuit psychopaths.
"I'm not all that upset by rapists being executed.It's the murder of women guilty of infidelity and the murder of those who convert to another religion that sets islam apart as a gang of vicious 9th Century psychopaths."
This Tuesday they stone the rapists. They stone the women who exposed their calves and a lock of their hair NEXT Tuesday.
They "confessed". The stoning was probably looking pretty good after a little "questioning".
as I often do when I read a post that is noteworthy, profound, or droll, I went to your FR page, to find out more about the person who is so funny, profound, or sounds like a halfway decent looking single woman (no, "paleo" anything just doesn't qualify). As near as I can figure, those, uhh, things, aren't moving in circles. Also, I discovered The Coup on the Web quite by accident and was appalled by that album cover, and the sentiments expressed by the "artists" in post 9/11 interviews. If they were white, they'd be white trash.
, in what some fear is the latest sign of a plan to install a hardline Islamic authority like Afghanistan's Taliban.
This is a surprise??
"I think this falls under the broken clock rule."
LOL! I was planning to post EXACTLY this after I had read the title !
No surprise here..
The Islam - the culture of death - deals in death..
When all one has is a hammer -- everything looks like a nail.
Semper Fi
That is exactly what I was thinking.
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