Somalia's transitional government shut three of the country's biggest radio stations on Monday, accusing them of broadcasting incendiary propaganda.
Then, in a show of force, hundreds of government soldiers stormed into the streets of Mogadishu, the capital, as tanks from neighboring Ethiopia, which has been providing military support to the government, chugged through downtown, drawing crowds of onlookers and the occasional rock.
Somalia's government, which declared a state of emergency on Saturday, seems intent on using its newfound powers to crush the seeds of a growing insurgency. On Sunday night, gunmen attacked an Ethiopian convoy, setting off an intense hour-long firefight in one of Mogadishu's ramshackle neighborhoods.
PHOTO: NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
Ethiopian troops last month helped rout Somalia's Islamist forces, which had controlled much of the country, but the Islamists have vowed to regroup underground.
More frequent
As the days pass, the insurgent attacks grow more frequent and more lethal. The government has not released casualty figures, but Mogadishu residents said more than a dozen people had been killed in gunbattles over the past week.
Executives of the radio stations, however, said that was no excuse to force them off the air.
"All we have done is voice different opinions," said Mohammed Amiin, deputy chairman of Shabelle Media Network. "We never expected this to happen."
Abdirahman Dinari, spokesman for the transitional government, accused Shabelle, along with the other stations, of making false reports to stir up the people against the government.
"They said our soldiers were looting the markets and harassing people, which was totally untrue," he said. "They are using the media to undermine the government. They have been doing this for months."
Security officials have summoned station owners to a meeting on Tuesday, and Dinari said there was a possibility that the stations would soon be back on the air, after they were given a warning.
In a land of rival clans, there is a clan dimension to all this. The owners of both Shabelle and Horn Afrik, another station that was closed down, are members of the Ayr, a branch of the powerful Hawiye clan, and many government officials blame the Ayr for the rising level of violence.
"The Ayr clan is part of the problem," Dinari said.
Suspicions
The Ayr was closely associated with the Islamist movement, with several top Islamist leaders from the Ayr. Many residents say they suspect that Ayr members are the backbone of the insurgency, though Ayr elders vehemently deny this.
So far, the most intense fighting -- and the most intense crackdowns -- has been in Ayr neighborhoods, and it is beginning to fuel Ayr resentment.
"We are being harassed simply because of our clan," said Abdi Ali Halaneh, an Ayr businessman who sells building materials in north Mogadishu.
Halaneh said that many of his friends now wanted to leave Somalia.
"There may be no place for us here," he said.
The government also closed the Mogadishu office of al-Jazeera and a Somali religious radio station, which some people feared could play into the hands of the Islamists.
In the Bakara market, where even the tiniest tin kiosk has a radio, shoppers and shopkeepers moaned and hissed when the music and news turned to static. Many shook their radios.
Some derided the government and accused it of being hypocritical because, just a few months ago, government officials had criticized the Islamists for not allowing radio stations to play Western music.
Now the government was going further by closing the same stations.
"Totalitarian rule has arrived," said Asho Elmi Ahmed, a shopper. "And it didn't take long."
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of