Fuad Mohamed Qalaf (Somali: Fu'aad Maxamed Khalaf, Arabic: فؤاد محمد خلف) (born 28 March 1965), also known as Fuad Shangole,[1] is a Somali-Swedish militant Islamist. He was a senior leader of the now defunct Islamic Courts Union (ICU), and is currently a senior leader of its successor al-Shabaab.[1]
Born in Mogadishu, Qalaf came to Sweden as an asylum seeker in 1992 and later received Swedish citizenship.[2][3] He stayed in Sweden for twelve years, most of the time working as an Imam at a mosque in the Stockholm area.[2][3] As such, he worked to influence young Muslims about Jihad.[2] In 2004, Qalaf returned to Somalia together with his family to fight with the Islamic Courts Union in the war against the Transitional Federal Government and allied Ethiopian forces.[2]
Following the conquest of Mogadishu in 2007, Qalaf went on to serve as head of the Department of Education under the new ICU-government.[2][3] The Somali human rights group Sultan Hurre Human Rights Focus also described him as a "senior leader" of ICU militant youth wing al-Shabaab.[4] After the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in December 2006 and the subsequent fall of the ICU-government, Qalaf and other ICU leaders fled to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.[5] In April 2007 he was reported as living in Kenya.[2]
According to the Swedish news website Nyheter24, Qalaf participated in the March 2009 stoning of a thirteen year old Somali girl named Asho Duhalow.[6] The girl was sentenced to death according to Islamic Sharia law because she reportedly didn't follow Islamic clothing laws.[6] Later during the day, according to the same source, he also cut the hand of a Somali man who was accused of theft.[6] The man had stolen money and clothes to the value of approximately US$100.[6]
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