A militant official and a Somali resident say al-Shabab fighters have stoned to death a man for carrying out a homosexual sex act.

The resident, Yusuf Abdi, said the group buried a blindfolded man to his waist last Friday and threw stones at him until he died.

An al-Shabab official said one of its judges sentenced the man to death because he forced a 13-year-old boy to have sex with him. The al-Shabab member insisted he not be named.

Al-Shabab implements a conservative and austere brand of Islam in areas it controls.

Sheikh Ibrahim Ali, a Somali religious leader in Mogadishu, said homosexuality is controversial inside Islam. One strict reading of Islamic law, he said, is that a married man who engages in a homosexual act should be killed.