Somalia's Shabaab rebels execute two for spying

By Ibrahim Mohamed and Abdi Guled

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somalia's hardline al Shabaab insurgents executed two young men in public on Sunday after telling a crowd in a rebel-held port that they had confessed to spying.

The United States says the group, which wants to topple President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed's fragile U.N.-backed government and impose its own strict version of Islamic law, is al Qaeda's proxy in the failed Horn of Africa state.

"These two young men were involved in spying against our Islamic administration," Sheikh Suldan, an al Shabaab official, told reporters in Marka, 100 km (62 miles) south of Mogadishu.

"We have been holding them for three months. We investigated and they confessed."

Witnesses said al Shabaab fighters used loudspeakers to summon residents to an open area near the port, where hundreds gathered to watch the grisly spectacle.

Courts run by al Shabaab clerics have ordered executions, floggings and amputations in recent months, mostly in Kismayu further south, but also in rebel-held districts of the capital.

The insurgents have also banned movies, musical ringtones, dancing at wedding ceremonies and playing or watching soccer.

Also on Sunday, al Shabaab closed a local non-governmental organisation, ASEP, in Balad Hawa town near the Kenyan border and seized several of its members, residents said. An al Shabaab source said the staff had also been accused of spying.