Kids Who Won Somali Radio Contest Awarded ... AK-47s

A Somali radio station run by al-Shabab held an, er, interesting trivia contest for kids this weekend. Kids aged 10-17 were quizzed on Islam and al-Shabab minutiae (example: “Which war was al-Shabab warrior Sheik Timajilic killed in?”), with the lucky winner and runner-up both walking away with a prize package including money, al-Shabab books, and, of course, AK-47 assault rifles, the New York Times reports. The third-place finisher had to settle for two live hand grenades.

The prizes were handed out at an awards ceremony in a town near Mogadishu, where Sheik Muktar Robow Abu Monsur—a moderate figure, as al-Shabab sheiks go—proclaimed that “Children should use one hand for education and the other for a gun to defend Islam.” Al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda affiliate, controls much of Somalia, which has no central government, and hence some of the worst schooling rates on the planet. (More al-Shabab stories.)