Earlier this week,a group representing Mogadishu's dominant Hawiye clan said that al-Shabab militants had sent death threats to clan elders for participating in peace and reconciliation efforts with Somalia's interim government.

VOA: standard.2009.04.17

In September,a power struggle erupted in violence in the lower Juba region between al-Shabab and Hizbul Islam, a clan-based Islamist-nationalist group which had been al-Shabab's main ally in its year-long battle to overthrow the U.N.-backed government in Mogadishu.

VOA: standard.2010.01.02