Somalia Is Second Country After Pakistan Bowing To Islamic Militants Demand / Somali President Approves Islamic Law, But Insurgent Attacks Continue
(NSI News Source Info) MOGADISHU - May 14, 2009: As Islamist insurgents continued an assault on government forces in Mogadishu, President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed signed a bill late Wednesday enacting Islamic Sharia law in the country.
President Ahmed said Somalia is a Muslim country and the people support Islamic law. He instructed his cabinet ministers to implement the legislation and defended the bill from the criticism of the insurgents threatening the government. Mr. Sharif said this is the first time Islamic law has been introduced in Somalia, so what reason do they have for opposing it, other than to destroy the country?
Application of law unclear
It remains unclear how the law will be applied or how it will relate to the existing secular constitution that governs Somalia's provisional government. President Sharif said he would name legal experts to work through any conflicts.
Supporters of the president hope that the formal introduction of Islamic law will help to undermine the Islamist insurgency. Since last Thursday, fighters from the al-Shabab and Hizbul-Islam militias have led an offensive against government forces, pro-government militias and African Union peacekeepers.
A Hizbul-Islam rebel takes aim during clashes with government forces near presidential palace in Mogadishu, 14 May 2009. But a top al-Shabab leader, Sheikh Muktar Abdirahman "Godane", issued a taped message Wednesday urging fighters to continue their attacks against the government. Godane said the government should not be considered Islamic because it was created to fight Islamists.
President Sharif served alongside several of the current insurgent leaders in a short-lived Islamist government that was ousted by Ethiopia in late 2006. President Sharif's faction of the opposition signed a deal with the government last year and joined it in January.
International support doesn't lead to stability
President Sharif's government enjoys international backing, but has little control on the ground, beyond a few streets and key buildings in the capital.
The U.N. representative for Somalia said the international community should defend the fragile government. But after discussing Somalia on Wednesday, the U.N. Security Council said it would not send a peacekeeping force until the security situation improves. Instead, the Council said it would continue to support the 4,000 member African Union peacekeeping force.
Red Cross: more than 400 mostly civilians wounded
According to reports from the country, at least 120 people have been killed by the fighting during the past week. The International Committee of the Red Cross said more than 400 people have been treated at hospitals it supports in Mogadishu, most of them civilians, and that thousands of people have been newly displaced from their homes.
On Thursday, at least three more people were killed in clashes in northern Mogadishu. International humanitarian agencies are warning the latest fighting exacerbates an already dire situation. More than one million people have been displaced by previous rounds of fighting. The United Nations also says Somalia is facing its worse drought in a decade, with almost half the population malnourished.
Photograph released by the Sri Lankan military May 13, 2009 shows what the army says are items including aircraft engines and rotary blades, communication equipment, runway lights and documents they uncovered belonging to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) "air wing" contingent. Shelling killed a Red Cross worker inside Sri Lanka's war zone on Wednesday, the aid agency said, while troops and the Tamil Tigers battled in an intensifying fight to the finish of Asia's longest modern war.
Sri Lankan Army units advanced on the two-square-mile coastal strip from the south, north and west, forcing the rebels into an ever-smaller sliver of jungle, palms and sand, the military said. More than 1,000 civilians waded across a shallow lagoon under rebel fire, the military said in a statement, and hundreds more fled across land to the north.
If the military’s assertion is true, it would be the first time in well over a week that such a large number of civilians had been able to leave the combat zone in Sri Lanka, where the civil war, Asia’s longest, appears to finally be reaching a close with a Tamil Tiger defeat despite rebel denials. 
Pakistani Frontier constables stop vehicles entering Buner in Swat district, where troops launched an offensive against militants, May 13, 2009. Pakistan's army chief ordered his men on Wednesday to ensure civilian casualties are kept to a minimum, even if that meant danger for them, in an offensive against Taliban militants in the Swat valley. A senior military official overseeing help for the internally displaced people (IDPs) said on Tuesday an estimated 800,000 civilians had fled from the latest fighting.*
The figure was a leap of more than 163,000 people registered since Wednesday, as desperate families piled onto trucks and tractors, or stream on foot out of the three worst-affected districts to hastily set up camps.
‘Some 834,000 IDPs (internally displaced people) have been registered so far. This is a massive, massive displacement in the world today,’ said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres.
‘Pakistan is passing through a difficult period. The international community should come forward and help Pakistan. I cannot give a figure but they need a lot of help,’ he added as he toured the Yar Hussain camp in Swabi district.
Ariane Rummery, spokeswoman for the UN refugee agency, said that 835,226 people had now registered since May 2.
They join another 500,000 people who fled bouts of fighting in the northwest last year, where extremist Taliban militants have been fighting to gain control and impose their brand of Islamic law.
With more than 1.3 million people displaced, Human Rights Watch has warned that Pakistan is facing its biggest movement of people since the partition of India in 1947, which led to the migration of millions.
Security forces have launched a fresh offensive in Swat, Lower Dir and Buner districts after the insurgents advanced to within 100km of Islamabad.
Dr. Ashot Khachatryan recently enjoyed gourmet Indian cusine with friends in Singapore. Seen in the above aforementioned picture from left to right are Bob Seth, Dr. Koh and Dr. Ashot Khachatryan
