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MOGADISHU, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Somali Islamists on Friday publicly executed a convicted murderer, shooting him at close range in the latest application of strict sharia law the group says will end anarchy in the Horn of Africa nation.
Hundreds watched as six masked Islamist soldiers in combat fatigues lined up in front of the man and fired a fusillade from AK-47 assault rifles, as his relatives and those of the man he killed nearly three months ago stood by silently.
Soldiers from the Islamist movement, which has imposed sharia across the swathe of south-central Somalia it has seized since June, first tied the man to a post and blindfolded him.
As dozens of Islamist fighters stood guard, the man's bleeding head fell to one side after the execution squad had fired, a Reuters reporter who witnessed the shooting said.
"He was killed by six troops who fired 16 shots at him. The bullets hit him in the head, heart and limbs," an Islamist official who helped organise the shooting told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
"The man admitted he killed a businessman."
The official said an accomplice of the executed man who held the businessman as his friend shot him was jailed for life.
The Islamists, who took control of Mogadishu from U.S.-backed warlords in June, have brought some semblance of order to the lawless capital by dispensing justice under sharia law, which states that if someone murders, they should also die.
"Blood gushed from the man. It was really bad," said 12-year-old Mohamed Yarow, who witnessed the execution. "That is justice. The man he killed must have also felt the same."
Critics say the Islamists plan a Taliban-style rule, and thousands of Somalis have fled to neighbouring Kenya, many saying they had found the imposition of strict sharia too harsh.
The Islamists deny any similarities to the Taliban and deny accusations they harbour al Qaeda extremists, saying they simply want to promote the norms and cultures of Islam in their almost entirely Muslim nation of 10 million.
On Friday, Islamist leader Sheikh Sharif Ahmed denied his fighters had threatened United Nations staff, leading the world body to pull 46 international staff from south-central Somalia and the semi-autonomous northern Puntland region last month.
"It is possible they were being made by bogus people spreading lies," Ahmed told Somalia's Radio HornAfrik. "It is possible such a thing might have occurred and the U.N. is taking this at face value."
Several news outlets reported the Sept. 19 decision on Thursday, by which time all but 16 staff had returned to their posts. The U.N. had also suspended all missions to Mogadishu.
A U.N. spokeswoman said the decision to withdraw staff was prompted by security concerns after an Italian nun was murdered in Mogadishu, President Abdullahi Yusuf escaped an assassination attempt in Baidoa and written threats were sent to some U.N. staff.
The Islamists' military superiority has kept Somalia's fractious interim government -- which controls only the outlying town of Baidoa -- from imposing any kind of authority in a nation in anarchy since the 1991 ouster of dictator Siad Barre.
Source: Reuters, Oct. 13, 2006