Somali Militants Execute Teens

Militants from Somalia's most feared insurgent group used a firing squad to execute two teenagers in public yesterday, say witnesses and officials. The executions took place in front of hundreds of people summoned to witness the killings in the capital. The firing squad was made up of five masked men. A self-described "judge" inside al-Shabab said that one of the two teens, age 15, was accused of sexually assaulting a 9-year-old boy. The other, age 18, was accused of being a government spy.

"We have been holding them for some time. We investigated and they confessed," said the judge. Al-Shabab follows a harsh and conservative reading of Islam. Last month the group executed two teenage girls accused of spying for government soldiers. Al-Shabab, which vows allegiance to al-Qaeda and whose members include foreign fighters, controls large parts of southern Somalia and much of the capital, Mogadishu. (More Somalia stories.)