Angry in the Great White North

From the Toronto Star:

Canadian Awad Ahmed Ashareh is now a member of parliament with the transitional government and while he believes there are some members of the Union of Islamic Courts who are open to negotiation, he concedes the power imbalance is frightening.

"There won't be disarmament without foreign support because in the Islamic courts, every clan, they have their own arms, headed by a sheikh. They transferred the arms of the warlords to the sheikhs of their clans," he said during a recent interview in Kenya's capital, Nairobi.

Ashareh then stops the interview as he breaks into sobs, explaining that the stress of life in Somalia is sometimes overwhelming.

His shoulders shaking, wiping tears angrily away, he pauses to compose himself and apologize.

"I tell you, it's a horrible situation," he says.

"Nobody's helping Somalia."

I emailed the reporter who wrote this piece, Michelle Shephard, and she confirmed to me that Awad Ashareh is indeed Yasmin's father. It is still not clear the situation that arose that had Awad Ashareh leave his wife and family and return to Somalia over ten years ago, and whether there is any connection to the situation in Somalia and Yasmin's death.

But then I still wonder how the daughter of an important figure in a country slipping into civil war in which Islamic fundamentalists are a major player is found brutally murdered in our city, her throat cut, and for no obvious motive, and no one reports on that link. It seems significant to me. At the very least, noteworthy.

Read all the Yasmin Ashareh posts. There are so many odd elements in this story.