Mogadishu: Winners of a Somali radio quiz show testing knowledge of the Koran are being offered prizes including grenades, Kalashnikov rifles and ammunition, according to a local report.
The prizes offered by an Islamic broadcaster in the port of Kismayo were designed to "encourage the population to fight", according to the report by independent Radio Garowe radio station.
It quoted Sheikh Abdiwali Mohammed Aden, financial head of the radical Islamic al-Shabab militia, which seeks to depose the moderate Islamic interim government of Sheikh Sharif Ahmed.
Kismayo port is controlled by al-Shabab, which the US and several other countries have black-listed as a terrorist organisation with links to al Qaeda.
IANS
First Published: Sunday, October 18, 2009, 16:29