Garowe Online (Garowe)
13 June 2009
Kismayo — Sheikh Mowlid Abdi Omar, Al Shabaab-appointed police station commander in Kismayo, told the public that "TV satellites" and "mobile phones with memory cards" are banned.
But Al Shabaab information secretary, Sheikh Hassan Yakub, rejected the reports during a Saturday press conference in Kismayo, a strategic port in the south and Somalia's third-largest city.
"The [Al Shabaab] Administration has not issued an order banning TV satellites at private homes...that order is false," Sheikh Yakub said, adding that only orders issued by Al Shabaab officials like the mayor, the deputy mayor and official statements from the information secretary are true.
Some Kismayo residents expressed disappointment with the order banning TV satellites and mobile phones with memory cards, which are used to store music, video clips and other media forms.
WFP expelled, expired medicines burned
Sheikh Yakub reiterated an order that the UN's World Food Program (WFP) and other unnamed aid agencies leave Kismayo and the surrounding regions or face unspecified consequences.
Further, he ordered teachers conducting lessons at an aid agency seminar to stop their work immediately and be replaced by "Islamic teachers."
Al Shabaab guerrillas in Bu'ale, the provincial capital of Middle Jubba region, recently stopped a seminar organized by UNICEF.
Separately, Al Shabaab burned 60 boxes of "expired medicines" in the outskirts of Kismayo, witnesses said. Local business leaders were warned not to import expired food or medicines.
Al Shabaab, listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government, controls most regions in south-central Somalia and is fighting to topple the Horn of Africa country's UN-recognized interim government.
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