Svenske Shabaab-ledaren: Redaktörer på BBC och VOA är islams fiender

Den svenske medborgaren Fu'ad Mohamed "Shongole" Khalaf, högt uppsatt i den somaliska terroriströrelsen Shabaab, förklarade i fredags att namngivna redaktörer på BBC och VOA är islams fiender, vilka rättrogna muslimer har gudomlig rätt att döda.

Tidigare har Shabaab förbjudit BBC och VOA att sända ifrån områden som kontrolleras av Shabaab, och plundrat radiostationer på utrustning.

Kenyas The Daily Nation rapporterar (och Garowe Online återger):

Sheikh Fu’ad Mohamed Khalaf Shongole, al Shabaab’s head of mobilisation, called Yusuf Garad Omar of the BBC and Abdurahman Mohamed Yabarow of the VOA murtadeen (people who have abandoned the Islamic faith).

This qualifies them as enemies of the religion.

Addressing hundreds of worshippers who had congregated for the midday Friday Prayers at a mosque in Mogadishu, Sheikh Fu’ad Shongole said that some well-known Somalis were enemies of Islam.

He labelled them the “new unfaithful”.

According to witnesses, the sheikh emphasised that the editors of the BBC and VOA Somali Services, two widely followed broadcasters, were involved in actions that harmed Islam in Somalia.

He stated that they used propaganda and pro-western information to mislead Muslims in the country.

The FM radio stations in areas controlled by al Shabaab have been prohibited from re-broadcasting the VOA from Washington DC and the BBC Somali Service from London.

Transmitters and other properties belonging to the BBC were confiscated by the Islamist movement.

In the past, politicians and government employees in Somalia were categorised as murtadeen. Through the declaration, loyalists of al Shabaab could kill a murtad (a person classified as unfaithful) on sight.