Shabaab bans camera mobile phone in S. Somali town

MOGADISHU

The Al-Shabaab militant group has banned camera mobile phones in a town it controls in southern Somalia, local residents said.

"The militants have enforced a law banning such phones after they had outlawed smartphones under the pretext of being used to spy on them," Abdel-Rehim Ahmad, a resident of Barawa, told Anadolu Agency.

He said any resident caught with a camera mobile phone is detained and the phone smashed.

Al-Shabaab has not confirmed the ban, but the group has already outlawed the use of internet in areas under its controls.

Communications services in Al-Shabaab-controlled areas are repeatedly cut during raids by the militant group, which already bans the use of social media.

Al-Shabaab continues to control several towns in the southeast and south of war-torn Somalia.

In November, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud vowed that 2014 would witness the end of the Al-Qaeda-allied militant group.

Somalia has remained in the grip of on-again, off-again violence since the outbreak of civil war in 1991.

The country had appeared to inch closer to stability with the recent installation of a new government and the intervention of African Union troops tasked with combatting Al-Shabaab.

By Nour Geidi

englishnews@aa.com.tr