“Seventeen women have been arrested for defying a decree that banned women from wearing the Muslim veil,” a spokesman for Somalia’s Middle Shabbelle region, controlled by warlord Muhammad Omar Habeb, said on March 27.

Independent sources in Jowhar, 90 kilometers (56 miles) north of the capital Mogadishu, confirmed the arrests.

Habeb banned the Islamic veils last week in a bid to foil male would-be attackers who could be disguised as women.

“We don’t oppose women covering their body as stipulated by Islam, but some women are covering the whole face so it is difficult to know whether the person is a woman or a man,” Habeb said.

“There is a danger that some men covered with veils might be carrying weapons and kill people,” he said.

“Therefore, my responsibility is to safeguard local and foreign dignitaries from attacks that might be waged by Muslim fundamentalists, who politicize the holy religion of Islam,” Habeb said.

“Those who violate the decree would be jailed,” Habeb warned.

He had also banned vehicles with tinted windows from operating in his fiefdom.

“Any vehicle with tinted glasses will be impounded from Monday [March 29]” as a security threat, Habeb said.

In his decree last week, Habeb pointed out that he was a devoted Muslim but was compelled to act to avoid bloodshed by religious extremists.