MOGADISHU: Washington has sent weapons to Somalia's government to thwart insurgents, who cut hands and feet of thieves yesterday and paraded the severed limbs in the streets of Mogadishu.

Somalia’s Al-Shabab insurgents are seen as a proxy for Al-Qaeda. They have rejected the election of Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, a Muslim religious figure, as president in January. Osama Bin Laden declared Ahmed an enemy in an audiotape released in March. He called on the insurgents to topple the government.

The Washington Post said yesterday that arms and ammunition had been sent to the government in a move signaling that US President Barack Obama’s administration wanted to thwart the hard-liners. “It’s confirmed. They received approval from the UN Security Council,” an international security source said.

While the United Nations has had a long-standing arms embargo on Somalia, a May Security Council resolution urged member states to train and equip government security forces — as long as a UN embargo monitoring committee had no objections.

Another foreign security source said weapons had come into Somalia for the government via Uganda, which provides half the 4,300 African Union troops protecting key sites in Mogadishu.

“The prospect of the government collapsing is sending alarm bells ringing in Western capitals, but whether this latest move will succeed remains to be seen,” said Rashid Abdi, analyst at International Crisis Group. “Going further than providing arms to actually sending in more foreign forces would be a mistake,” he said. “The government would then play right into the hands of the militants, who would accuse them of accepting foreign meddling.”

Yesterday, Al-Shabab officials used long knives to cut off a hand and a foot each from four young men in Mogadishu as punishment for theft, witnesses said.