Somali Station on the Air, Without Music

By SALAD DUHUL

MOGADISHU, Somalia – Islamic militants who closed down a Somali radio station have allowed it back on the air so long as it does not play music or love songs, the station’s director said Monday.

Radio Jowhar can only broadcast news bulletins and readings from the Quran and other Islamic lectures, according to Said Hagaa Ahmed, director of Jowhar’s only radio station.

As a result, the station will broadcast only 13 hours a day, instead of the current 15, he said.

Ahmed said he held talks Sunday night with officials from the Islamic militia in Jowhar, some 55 miles from Mogadishu, and secured their approval to get his station back on the air.

"We miss the Somali and Western songs," Madey Nur, a 17-year-old resident of Jowhar, told The Associated Press by telephone.

Radio Jowhar was ordered closed Sunday because its programs were un-Islamic, said Sheik Mohamed Mohamoud Abdirahman, an official with the Islamic militia.

The Islamic group has imposed strict religious rule in Somalia after taking control in June of much of southern Somalia, including the capital. It is credited with bringing a semblance of order to the country after years of anarchy, but the strict rules have sparked fears of an emerging, Taliban-style regime.

Islamists in the capital have banned movie viewing, they have publicly lashed drug users, and they have broken up a wedding celebration because a band was playing and women and men were socializing together.

The United States accuses Somalia’s Islamic leaders of harboring al-Qaida leaders responsible for deadly bombings at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.