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Al-Shabaab militants in southern Somalia publicly stoned an 18-year-old boy to death after he was accused of rape, the Al-Qaeda-linked group and witnesses said.

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The teenager, named as Hassan Ahmed Ali, was accused of raping a 28-year-old woman at gunpoint and sentenced to death by a local judge, Al-Shabaab’s Radio Andalus reported. About 100 people witnessed the killing yesterday afternoon in the main square of Dharuuro, a village in Somalia’s Lower Shabelle region, Mohamed Dhubow, a resident, said by phone.

“Dozens of masked fighters” threw stones at the teenager, who’d been buried up to his neck, Dhubow said. “No one could help him.”

Al-Shabaab have been fighting Somalia’s government since at least 2006 in their campaign to establish an Islamic state. Somali government forces, backed by African Union soldiers, have made gains against Al-Shabaab since forcing the Islamist fighters to withdraw from the capital, Mogadishu, three years ago.

Somalia’s government expects to liberate areas still controlled by the militants within the next six months after capturing the insurgents’ coastal stronghold of Barawe in early October.