June 12, 2012

Somali Militants Say Obama Is Worth 10 Camels

10 of these.<a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&searchterm=camel+cartoon&search_group=&orient=&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&commercial_ok=&color=&show_color_wheel=1#id=104010464&src=93f34211dba5a50fc26f78a5a89fd026-2-89">Julien Tromeur</a>/Shutterstock

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Al-Shabaab—the population-terrorizing Al Qaeda-linked Islamist group in Somalia that has carried out deadly bombings in Uganda and elsewhere—has an odd sense of humor. As BBC News reported on Monday:

After the US put bounties on the heads of al-Shabab commanders, senior militant official Fuad Muhammad Khalaf announced: “Whoever reveals the hideout of the idiot Obama will be rewarded with 10 camels, and whoever reveals the hideout of the old woman Hillary Clinton will be rewarded 10 chickens and 10 roosters,” he said after Friday prayers.

The bounty is the terror group’s sardonic comeback to the US government offering $7 million last week for information leading to Ahmed Abdi aw-Mohamud Godane, an al-Shabaab co-founder and faction commander. The State Department has recently been hard at work backing at a UN-supervised peace plan for Somalia. The East African nation is the site of a rapidly expanded US-led drone war against AQ affiliates, and the Obama administration also has a habit of killing the country’s pirates.

Typically, a male brown camel can be worth up to $7,000; females are worth up to $20,000. That means Al-Shabaab’s mock offer for information on the president’s “hideout” equals between $70,000 and $200,000—which is $6,800,000 less than what the United States is currently offering for one al-Shabaab leader. (Just for a frame of reference, an Australian insurance firm put Barack Obama’s worth at $51,000 in crocodile attack insurance back in November.)

Here are a few other things you can get for $200K:

As for the bounty on Secretary Clinton’s head, MyPetChicken.com puts the price of a hen at up to $25. A rooster will cost you roughly $3.00. That comes to a grand total of $280 for information leading to the capture of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

$280 will get you one new ProForm 280 CSX upright exercise bike from Best Buy—with $55.02 in change.

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That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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