A few hours after announcing the ban on three UN agencies working in Somalia for being “enemies of Islam and Muslims,” hardline Somali Islamists of the al Qaeda-inspired Shebab insurgency attacked the agency’s offices. They divested the premises of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the United Nations Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS) and the UN Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) in the towns of Baidoa and Wajid, south of the capital of Mogadishu. They impounded office equipment.

“The above foreign agencies have been found to be working against the benefit of the Somali Muslim population and against the establishment of an Islamic state in Somalia,” reads the Shebab statement.

Fiercely opposed to the transitional government of Somalia, the Shebab that is in control over the past several months of much of southern and central Somalia, have begun to implement a strict version of Sharia (Koranic law). The Shebab accuse these particular UN organizations of supporting the apostate government of Somalia and training government troops.

The United Nations has more foreign staff permanently based in Somalia, a country in civil war since 1991, but local UN employees work in various towns in functions that include the distribution of humanitarian aid to the population. Expatriate staff conducts regular missions to the country from neighboring Kenya.

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Via Yahoo! News