The Al-Shabab Movement has for the first time released a video of the man that targeted former President, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmad, with suicide attacks on 18 September 2006.

The spokesman for Al-Shabab, Ali Mahmud Rage, Abu Mansur and Al-Amrika are seen in the video in which the beginning shows the man who carried out the suicide attacks in Baydhabo. The video which runs for 27 minutes shows Abdisalan Hirsi Mahmud Lugey who was the first Somali man to carry out suicide attacks smiling and while in training.

The video also shows a party held for the children whose fathers carried out suicide attacks in Somalia in the period between 2006 and 2009. The children are being encouraged to follow their father`s footsteps.

Abu Mansur Al-Amriki urged the mothers of the children to raise them on the path of jihad so that they too can follow their fathers. The children were also shown pictures of Abu Mus`ab Al-Zarqawi and Adan Hashi Ayrow and were given plastic guns and pistols meant to encourage them to use. This is the first time that Al-Shabab has released the video of the first Somali man to have carried out suicide attacks in the country.

Click here to watch the video: http://www.megavideo.com/?v=466C63BC

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Somali Islamists Reject US Accusations of Suicide Order
Friday, November 3, 2006

 
A car explodes in the southern town of Baidoa, 155 miles (249 km) northwest of Somalia`s capital Mogadishu, September 18, 2006. A car bomb killed five people and wounded several others outside parliament in Somalia`s provincial capital Baidoa in an assassination attempt on President Abdullahi Yusuf. BEST QUALITY AVAILABLE. REUTERS/Stringer

MOGADISHU, Nov 3, 2006 (AFP) - Somalia`s powerful Islamic movement on Friday denied US allegations its supreme leader had authorized suicide attacks in neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia.

The Islamists, some of whom are suspected of links with Osama bin Laden`s Al-Qaeda network, said the �baseless warning� from Washington was part of a pro-Zionist, Israeli propaganda aimed at destabilizing the Muslim world.

�We know that America never favors Islamic movements anywhere in the world and such statements are part of a incorrect Zionist-inherited ideology,� said Sheikh Mukhtar Robow, the Islamists` deputy defense chief.

�Islam does not harm people,� he told AFP. �The warnings issued by the American embassy are baseless and we never attack neighboring countries.�

�America misleads its own people by giving such baseless warnings but we will never falter because we stand ready to defend our religion and people from the enemy of Allah,� Robow said.

On Thursday, the US embassies in Nairobi and Addis Ababa warned of the threat of suicide attacks against �prominent� targets in Kenya and Ethiopia and urged Americans to use �extreme caution� in the two countries.

�These threats specifically mention the execution of suicide explosions in prominent landmarks within Kenya and Ethiopia,� they said in notices sent to US citizens in the two countries.

Embassy officials said the warning was prompted by postings on Somali websites purported to come from Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the Islamists` supreme leader, in which he authorizes suicide attacks in Kenya and Ethiopia.

Aweys, a hardline cleric designated a �terrorist� by the United States for alleged Al-Qaeda ties, could not be reached for comment about the statements attributed to him.

He has in the past denied any connection to terrorism and rejected US accusations the Islamists are harboring Al-Qaeda suspects wanted for the deadly 1998 bombings of its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The US warning came as the Islamists have declared �jihad�, or holy war, on neighboring Ethiopia for allegedly sending thousands of troops to Somalia to back the country`s weak government and accused Kenya of siding with Ethiopia.

It also comes the Islamists and the government gird for war after the collapse of peace talks in Khartoum this week.

BOTh Kenya and Ethiopia favor the deployment of regional peacekeepers -- vehemently opposed by the Islamists -- to help the government, whose limited authority is increasingly threatened.

Earlier this year, a covert US program to support Somali warlords battling the Islamists for control of Mogadishu failed disastrously when the capital fell in June after months of fierce fighting.

The Islamists have since rapidly expanded their territory to include most of southern and central Somalia, where they have imposed strict Sharia law, fuelling concern of a Taliban-style takeover of the lawless country.

(Description of Source: Paris AFP (World Service) in English -- world news service of the independent French news agency Agence France Presse)

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Somali Rebels Resort to Suicide Attacks
Le Monde
Friday, April 27, 2007

 
An Islamist insurgent places ammunition around a boy in northern Mogadishu April 23, 2007. Shelling and artillery fire shook northern Mogadishu on Tuesday, the seventh day of fighting between allied Somali-Ethiopian forces and Islamist gunmen that has killed hundreds of people. Picture taken April 23, 2007.

Report by Jean-Philippe Remy: �Suicide Attacks, New Weapon of War of the Islamist Rebels in Somalia�

It took a few minutes to understand where the powerful explosion came from that early in the afternoon of Tuesday, 24 April shook the area around the Ambassador Hotel, where political and security officials of the Somali Transition Federal Government (TFG) were staying. Only a tiny pile of smoldering ashes remained of the car parked not far away a quarter of an hour earlier. The nearby guards, lightly wounded, said �two men� got out of the Toyota Mark II �who took care to lock the doors before calmly leaving.�

The car was loaded with explosives with a remote-activated detonation device. As the Ethiopian forces, supported by their TFG allies, continued to fight the Mogadishu rebels on Tuesday (24 April), two Ethiopian military trucks returning from the front were undoubtedly a perfect target. But the two vehicles, filled with troops, were blocked 100 meters from the hotel by TFG soldiers who prohibited any movement in front of the Ambassador, already the target of attacks in past weeks. That saved their lives.

As the trucks were leaving after having turned around, the Toyota exploded, killing the two guards in the middle of the road and bystanders in a radius of some 50 meters. The force of the shock disintegrated the car, scattering the area around the Ambassador with blackened debris and throwing parts over roofs. These fragments, as sharp as razors, killed a man who had come to beg for a few shillings in front of the hotel, a tea vendor, a few unknown persons, and the TFG soldiers manning the blockade. In all at least seven people.

It was not a suicide attack, unlike the one that took place a few hours earlier at Afgoye, 30 kilometers from Mogadishu. There, eyewitnesses say that a minibus or truck exploded with its driver in an Ethiopian base after having forced the barriers guarding the entrance. Several sources say the Ethiopian troops inside were not hit. The explosion killed and seriously wounded Somalis who were guarding the surrounding area.

As the second phase of the battle of Mogadishu, which began on Thursday, 19 April, has already caused more than 200 deaths, the capital is now being hit by a wave of attacks, some carried out by suicide bombers.

At least four suicide attacks have taken place in a country where just recently people were asserting that tradition prohibits this type of practice. At least one of the suicide bombers involved in these attacks was Somali, as testified by the video clip produced with elaborate effects circulating in Mogadishu and showing the stages of his preparation for the �martyrdom� against an Ethiopian base.

Aden Salat Aden is filmed explaining his action, praying, shaving his beard to avoid attracting attention, before boarding a four-wheel drive vehicle on which the roof rack was covered with a mattress like the vehicles of displaced persons fleeing the city. A choir celebrates his action, singing �He is going to paradise,� as he drives toward El Arfit (�The Devil`s Well�), an Ethiopian base in northern Mogadishu. The camera films the detonation and a huge plume of smoke rising into the sky.

According to a source close to the rebels, �there was a list of 10 candidates who are prepared for martyrdom. A lottery had to be organized to know who would be the first among them.� Other sources report the existence of a small brigade of martyrs finishing their training, which reportedly also includes foreigners. Credit for some of these suicide attacks, including the one on Tuesday, was claimed on an Internet site by a �Movement of Young Mujahidin.�

The development of this wave of attacks coincides with a particularly violent stage of the battle of Mogadishu between the rebels, who hold a large part of the city, and the Ethiopian forces, supported by elements of the TFG.

To justify the intensive bombings of residential neighborhoods in the capital, which have caused more than 1,000 casualties since the end of March, the TFG officials have asserted several times that they are waging the war in Mogadishu against groups connected with the international jihadist movement, regularly confusing the rebels with �members of Al-Qaeda,� as Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi repeated on Monday (23 April).

The organization of these attacks shows that terrorist cells are operating within the various factions of the rebel movement, which have taken the name of �mukhawama� (resistance).

On Monday, the TFG forces seized large quantities of mines and explosives in a Mogadishu �laboratory� intended for the manufacture of bombs, as well as a Stinger ground-to-air missile, a government source reports. He adds that �more than 10 types of mines were found there, several tons worth, and the equipment comes from Iran.�

At the same time, two major seizures of weapons and explosives hidden in trucks were carried out at the entrance to Baidoa, the small city where the TFG has established its �second capital.�

(Description of Source: Paris Le Monde (Internet Version-WWW) in French -- leading left-of-center daily)

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Somali PM Gedi on Assassination Attempt, US Military Strike on Al-Qaeda
Al-Sharq al-Awsat
June 05, 2007

 
Somalia`s Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi walks outside his damaged house in north Mogadishu, June 4, 2007. A militant Islamist group on Monday claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb that killed seven people at the home of Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi, vowing to continue attacks until "occupiers" left Somalia. REUTERS/Shabelle Media

Telephone interview with Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi in Mogadishu by Khalid Mahmud; date not given

(Mahmud) Praise be to God for your safety. What happened?

(Gedi) Thank you. I was expecting this call because you are always to our side. We praise God that I escaped again (laughing) and it appears that God`s will to protect my life is greater than the will of the villainous terrorists. There was an attempt to assassinate me but I am all right now and was not hurt.

(Mahmud) Where were you when the suicide bomber set off the explosives inside the car only steps from your headquarters?

(Gedi) At around 0530 Mogadishu time, I had a meeting with several government members to discuss the current political and security situation in the country. As I was leaving a bathroom next to a bedroom opposite my office, a huge explosion occurred that wrecked the doors, windows, and most of the furniture. I looked around me immediately and saw everything had turned in seconds into debris and dust all over the place. They were undoubtedly critical moments but I did not lose my self-possession and immediately checked the safety of those around me.

(Mahmud) Was everyone all right?

(Gedi) Regrettably, seven guards were killed in this operation and when I looked from behind the window I saw the suicide bomber`s limbs. His two feet were burnt and his remains scattered. It was a very sickening scene.

(Mahmud) You are the most targeted Somali prime minister for assassination?

(Gedi, laughing) Maybe. This is not certainly what I am seeking. My life or personal safety does not concern me as much as the action to rebuild the state that was destroyed by the merciless civil war and to restore Somalia`s regional and Arab position. In the end, I am a Muslim and believe in God`s will. I am well by virtue of God`s grace and I am therefore not afraid of a repetition of this operation.

(Mahmud) I heard that your ministers and guards advised you to move to a more secure place immediately?

(Gedi) Yes. They asked me this to protect my life. But I refused on the spot because it is quite unacceptable for a handful of terrorists to force me to leave my work place and residence. If I did this, it would have been a message encouraging them. I am staying where I am and this attempt will not frighten me, even if it is repeated 100 times.

(Mahmud) Were foreign elements involved in this attempt?

(Gedi) Yes, most certainly. The suicide bombing is a new and alien culture in Somali society. This is something definite and known to all those who want to kill me. They collaborated with terrorist groups abroad and used technologies that the Somalis do not know so as to achieve their suspicious objectives.

(Mahmud) Do you mean Al-Qaeda organization?

(Gedi) Yes, in addition to the Islamic Courts` remnants who do not wish the Somali people well and stability and are insisting on trying to kill me believing that my absence means killing the Somalis` hope and disrupting the transitional government`s plans to achieve national reconciliation and restore law and order in the country after an absence of 16 years, more precisely since the downfall of deposed President Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

(Mahmud) What do you intend to do against those who tried to kill you again?

(Gedi) I am not seeking personal revenge. Our concern at present is to prevent the terrorists from repeating their attempt and we will use all the means available to us to achieve success in this. These people have no place anymore among us and they should be crushed before they succeed in implementing their satanic plan of turning the country into a breeding ground for terrorists from all over the world and a safe haven for all outlaws and violators of international legitimacy.

(Mahmud) Have you identified all the parties involved in this attempt?

(Gedi) Not yet. The security and intelligence services are continuing their work and collecting masses of information. We will not rest until we bring them to justice and deter them for good.

(Mahmud) Did you know about the American forces` military strike against a group of Al-Qaeda elements and Islamic Courts remnants in Puntland region?

(Gedi) Of course I knew. There is much cooperation between us. We agreed some time ago to give the American forces the green light to carry out similar operations to hunt down the terrorists and prevent them from getting a foothold in Somalia.

(Description of Source: London Al-Sharq al-Awsat (Internet Version-WWW) in Arabic -- Influential Saudi-owned London daily providing independent coverage of Arab and international issues; editorials reflect official Saudi views on foreign policy. URL: http://www.asharqalawsat.com/)

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Armed government soldiers stand guard near a damaged house close to the residence of Somalia`s Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi in Mogadishu, June 4, 2007. A militant Islamist group on Monday claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb that killed seven people at the home of Prime Minister Gedi, vowing to continue attacks until "occupiers" left Somalia. REUTERS/Shabelle Media