By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, April 17, 2010
IFO, KENYA -- Two Islamist militants delivered an ultimatum to Zahra Allawi's daughters: marry them or die. The men were from al-Shabab, a militia linked to al-Qaeda that is fighting Somalia's U.S.-backed government. The two girls were 14 and 16.
Allawi said her neighbor in southeastern Somalia received the same command. But he swiftly married off his daughter to someone else. The next day, the fighters returned with a butcher's knife.
"They slaughtered him like a goat," she recalled.