WAJID, Somalia, April 8 (UPI) -- An Islamic insurgency group linked to al-Qaida took over a United Nations food aid compound in Somalia and disarmed its staff, officials said.
Harakat al-Shabaab Mujahideen, known as al-Shabaab, also seized food supplies from the U.N. World Food Program in Wajid, near Baidoa, and took away its computers, the BBC reported.
The group, called a terrorist organization by several Western governments, also took control of a nearby airstrip, the BBC said.
Al-Shabab ordered the food program, the world's largest humanitarian organization addressing hunger worldwide, to leave the country in February.
It argued Somalis should buy food from local farmers, rather than relying on foreign aid.
Despite killings and kidnapping threats, the U.N. agency has continued to provide food to the war-ravaged country, where half the population does not have enough food to feed itself.
A U.N. report charged that as much as half the food aid sent to Somalia was diverted from needy people to a web of corrupt contractors.
The report suggested the World Food Program rebuild its Somalia food distribution system from scratch to break what it described as a corrupt cartel of Somali distributors.
Al-Shabab controls much of southern Somalia, while the U.N.-backed government is in charge of a small part of the capital, Mogadishu.
The organization, an off-shoot of the Islamic Courts Union, acknowledged ties to al-Qaida this year.
