On Dec 22, 2006, at 3:34 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> Why are Islamists more interesting than Marxists in the
> Middle East? Not because the former think better than the latter --
> though they can, depending on subjects -- but because some of them get
> a third of their country out into the streets and know how to handle
> Kalashnikovs.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/22/world/africa/22somalia.html? _r=1&oref=slogin>
[...]
The Islamist fighters — many of them lightly armed teenage boys, the officials said — were mowed down by transitional government soldiers backed by the Ethiopian Army, the most powerful military in the region.
"The Islamists attacked, they retreated and then they made the mistake of running into an open field," a United Nations official said on the condition of anonymity. "After that, it was one shot, one kill."
United Nations officials estimated that dozens of Islamists had died. The Islamists denied suffering humiliating defeats. On Thursday, the Islamist clerics who rule Mogadishu, Somalia's capital, ordered schools closed so more children could be sent to the front lines.
[...]