Somali Islamist militia shot dead two people demanding to watch the World Cup semi-final in the latest sign of a hardline religious edge to the newly-powerful movement, witnesses said today.
Four others were wounded in the fracas outside a cinema.
The Islamists, who kicked US-backed warlords out of Mogadishu then took control of a large swathe of southern Somalia last month, initially sought to project a moderate image but have been increasingly showing a more radical side.
Last night's shooting came when militiamen in the central town of Dusa Mareb - the home area of the Islamists' hardline leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys - shut a cinema showing the Germany-Italy semi-final, inhabitants said.
"They stood in front of the cinema and told the cinema to shut down quickly," resident Muhubo Warsame said by phone.
When the mainly young audience began a demonstration outside, the gunmen first shot into the air, but their bullets also killed two and wounded four others, the witnesses said. The fatalities were the cinema owner and a young girl.
Locals were furious.
"Islam does not accept killing an innocent person without reason," Elmi Abdullahi, a local elder, said.
"We support the Islamic courts, yet our children are dying without reason," added another elder, who asked not to be named.
There have been numerous other reports of militia from the Islamic sharia courts - out of which the movement grew - stopping viewings of the World Cup, provoking public protests.
Islamist leaders say that is not their policy, but rather the work of over-zealous militiamen.