A Somali militant group publicly executed two teenage girls after accusing them of being spies

The teens were blindfolded with their hands behind their backs against a tree. A resident of Beledweyne - a town in central Somalia - said that Al-Shabaab called on the town's residents to come out and watch the execution. "Hundreds of people came out to watch the execution," he said. "It was very bad ... the girls looked shocked and were crying but [no one] could help." A relative of one of the teens denied they were spies. "My cousin, Ayan Mohamed Jama, was just 16 years old and she was absolutely innocent," said the relative, who did not want their name used out of fear of retribution from Al-Shabaab. "And Al-Shabaab caught her and the other girl between El-gal and Beledweyne and simply accused them of what they were not." The other girl, said the relative, was 15. Al-Shabaab refused their families' request to see the teens while they were in detention, "and they executed them at a public gathering, so this is inhumane and cruelty." In 2009, Al-Shabaab stoned a teenage girl to death in Kismayo, a town in southern Somalia. Al-Shabaab is waging a war against Somalia's government in an effort to impose a stricter form of Islamic law, or sharia.