Witnesses say hundreds of people gathered in a Mogadishu neighborhood Monday where masked gunmen executed a man by firing squad. They say the militants chopped off the hand of a second man accused of stealing property.
The Associated Press reports that nurses injected the accused thief with anesthesia before the amputation, and that waiting ambulances rushed him to a hospital afterward.
Al-Shabab and other Islamist groups control much of southern and central Somalia, which has not had a functioning central government in more than 18 years.
The hard-line militants carry out amputations, stoning and lashings as punishment The groups are trying to overthrow Somalia's Western-backed government and impose a strict form of sharia, or Islamic law on the country.
. Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991