UN Cuts Somalia Food Relief Over Islamist Threat

On Tuesday, the UN-affiliated World Food Programme (WFP) food agency said that it had been compelled to freeze food aid to a million hungry people in southern Somalia. This after months of attacks and extortion by al-Qaeda-linked rebels. "Rising threats and attacks on humanitarian operations, as well as the imposition of a string of unacceptable demands from armed groups, have made it virtually impossible for the WFP to continue reaching up to one million people in need in southern Somalia," it said in a statement. The WFP's humanitarian operations in southern Somalia have been under escalating attacks from armed groups, leading to this virtual suspension of humanitarian food distribution in much of southern Somalia, it said. Mired in almost uninterrupted civil conflict since the 1991 ouster of president Mohamed Siad Barre and plagued by recurring natural disasters, Somalia is often described as one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.The radical Islamist insurgent group Shebab, whose leader last year proclaimed allegiance to al-Qaeda supremo Osama bin Laden, has overrun and looted several key UN compounds in southern Somalia in recent weeks.