Somalia and the United States: A Long and Troubled History
allAfrica.com.OPINION
January 21, 2002
Herman J. Cohen, Washington, DC
The arrival of the film "Blackhawk Down" in cinemas in the United States and around the world reminded Americans that Somalia has never been far from the center of Washington's national security concerns. This vivid memory of the tragedy that befell American soldiers and Mogadishu fighters on October 3, 1993, comes at a time when Somalia is drawing worldwide attention as a potential hiding place for Al-Qaeda terrorists seeking to escape from U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Starting as far back as the Second World War (1939-1945), the United States paid particular attention to Somalia in its Africa policy. Since Italy was an enemy nation, allied with Nazi Germany and the Axis powers in the Second World War, Italian-controlled Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia were early military targets of the United Nations powers. Thanks to British forces based in Kenya, these territories were among the first to be liberated from Axis control in 1942. This was important to the United States because Mogadishu, Asmara and Djibouti were relay stations for U.S. forces operating in the Middle East.
Even before the end of the Second World War, the problem of Somali irredentism caused some friction between the United States and Britain. In August 1944, the British proposed to consolidate all Somali peoples into one nation, including the Ogaden, Italian Somaliland and French Somaliland, which became Djibouti. (Of course, they conveniently omitted the Somalis living in northeast Kenya, a key British colony..)
The United States objected to the inclusion of the Ogaden in Somaliland because Ethiopia had entered the war as an independent state and as an ally of the United Nations powers. For the same reason, the U.S. acquiesced in the amalgamation of the Italian colony of Eritrea with Ethiopia, without consulting the people of Eritrea.
After the merger of the Italian and British Somalilands into one independent nation in 1960, the United States regarded Mogadishu as an important African country given its strategic location next to the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. Following the military takeover led by Mohammed Siad Barre in October 1969, and his adoption of "scientific socialism" as Somali state policy, Somalia became a pawn in the Cold War between Washington and Moscow. The country's strategic location made the U.S.-Soviet competition all the more intense.
The essence of Siad Barre's foreign policy was Somali nationalism and irredentism, with a focus on uniting all Somali people under one flag. This policy constituted a major threat to Ethiopia's Ogaden region, where the vast majority of the inhabitants are Somalis. The policy also provided an opening for the Soviets, who had no inhibitions about pouring arms into Somalia in order to menace Ethiopia, America's main ally in the Horn Africa. As part of this process, the Soviets developed an air and naval facility in the port city of Berbera on Somalia's northwest coast.
With a key communications' base in Asmara, the United States countered the Somali arms buildup with a major military assistance program to the Ethiopian regime of Emperor Haile Selassie. Armed clashes between Somalia and Ethiopia took place on a regular basis, mainly in the Ogaden region. It was in this area that the first test of American and Soviet air power took place, with Ethiopian F-5 American-built aircraft demonstrating superiority over the Somali Mig-16s supplied by the Soviets.
In 1975, U.S. policy toward Somalia took an ironic 180-degree turn, when a military coup in Ethiopia overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie in favor of a Marxist pro-Soviet group known as the DERGUE, under the leadership of Mengistu Haile Merriam. This gave the Soviets an opening to become close to the Ethiopians in order to further undermine U.S. influence and gain control over the Red Sea lanes leading to the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf. The Soviet aim was to use their friendship with both Ethiopia and Somalia to reconcile the two feuding powers as "Marxist brothers." However, they failed to understand that in the mind of Siad Barre, the friend of their enemy (Ethiopia) could not be simultaneously a friend of Somalia. For Siad Barre, Somali irredentism was much more important than Marxist scientific socialism.
As U.S.-Ethiopian relations cooled in the aftermath of the 1975 Mengistu coup, U.S.-Somali relations warmed. The United State increased military and economic assistance to Somalia, and the U.S. Embassy in Mogadishu became one of the biggest American diplomatic missions in Africa. However, the U.S. faced a dilemma in its relations with Somalia because Washington did not want to be responsible for supporting Somali aggression against the Ethiopian Ogaden. Thus, Washington had to walk a fine line between the supply of defensive weapons to the Somali army, while parrying Siad Barre's constant demand for offensive weapons with which to attack Ethiopia.
Using offensive weapons purchased from Italy and other suppliers, Siad Barre attacked Ethiopia in the aftermath of the 1975 Mengistu takeover, hoping to take advantage of the disarray in the Ethiopian military. In order to counter Somalia's initial military successes in the Ogaden in 1977, Ethiopia called for assistance from the Soviet Union, who financed the arrival of 5,000 Cuban troops. The Cubans helped defeat the invading Somali army.
The deployment of Fidel Castro's Cuban troops to both Ethiopia and Angola in the period 1975-1976 was the major cause of the death of the policy of detente between the U.S. and the USSR. The Cold War had flared up again in Africa, and once again, Somalia was deeply involved.
In 1979, U.S. relations with Somalia took another turn after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. U.S. military analysts feared that the invasion was just the beginning of a major Soviet military push into Iran and the Persian Gulf oil producing areas. President Jimmy Carter reacted to this analysis by ordering the State Department to negotiate military base rights and facilities in the Gulf region. Saudi Arabia and other Arab states surrounding the Persian Gulf said they wanted American protection from the Soviet threat, but preferred that U.S. military components remain "over the horizon", and out of sight. The logical alternative to bases directly in the Gulf countries was to have facilities in East Africa. Thus, between 1979 and 1980, the U.S. negotiated to take over the former Soviet naval and air facility in the Somali port of Berbera and proceeded to upgrade the runway and docks in a project costing $35 million.
With Berbera becoming a key component of U.S. military planning in the defence of the Persian Gulf region, U.S.-Somali relations became even more important to Washington. This created yet another dilemma for U.S. policy, because the Siad Barre dictatorship became increasingly harsh, repressive and corrupt during the decade of the 1980s. Human rights groups in the U.S. and elsewhere criticized the American policy of providing military support to the Siad Barre regime. There were efforts in Congress to cut off military assistance to Somalia. These succeeded in 1989, so Washington had to maintain relations with Siad Barre solely through the supply of humanitarian and economic assistance.
During the second half of the 1980s, Somalia sank more and more deeply into civil war and lawlessness, as various clan groups armed themselves in opposition to Siad Barre's murderous regime. In 1990, Siad Barre's military had lost control of most of the country and was reduced mainly to defending Mogadishu.
Throughout this period, the United States continued to maintain good relations with Siad Barre because of the overriding imperative of maintaining military access to Berbera. In mid-1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, setting off a major security crisis in the Persian Gulf. It was for such a contingency that the U.S. had maintained strong ties with Siad Barre, despite his invasions of Ethiopia and his despicable human rights record. But in an irony of ironies, the American military suddenly found itself welcomed to the Persian Gulf and was able to base its fighting units inside Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries in preparation for the fight to drive Iraq out of Kuwait. Thus, the United States did not need Berbera in the Gulf War, and the reason for the friendship with Siad Barre fell away.
By early 1991, Siad Barre had been driven out of office and out of Somalia by his clan enemies, the Cold War had formally ended, and the Dergue regime in Ethiopia had been defeated and replaced by Tigrayan and Eritrean guerrilla armies. Unlike Ethiopia, where a new government was able to restore order and take control expeditiously, Somalia fell into a state of anarchy after Siad Barre's departure. Mogadishu was especially hit by clan warfare, lawlessness and banditry. The newly constructed U.S. Embassy was invaded by bandits, with the entire American staff and diplomats from other nations escaping on helicopters sent by the American military operating in the nearby Gulf war. Thus, in January 1991, it looked as if the United States had reached the point of forgetting about Somalia, which in strategic terms had reverted to being just another troubled backwater.
But Somalia could not be forgotten. By early 1992, in the absence of a central government, the country's humanitarian situation was becoming disastrous. This was especially true in southern Somalia, where marauding clan armies were fighting over the different quarters of Mogadishu, as well as the cities of Baidoa and Kismayu. With the security situation so dangerous, farmers were unable to plant and harvest. Efforts by the United Nations and private relief organizations to deliver food to the hungry were thwarted by warlords who were using relief goods as bargaining chips for money and power.
By mid-1992, the UN was reporting growing starvation in southern Somalia, with infants, nursing mothers and the elderly as the chief victims. Thus, Somalia again became a major policy issue for the United States government.
Efforts by UN Secretary General Boutros Boutro-Ghali to persuade the UN Security Council in early 1992 to consider the use of peacekeepers to help alleviate starvation in Somalia were blocked, mainly by the United States. The U.S. military were reluctant to start a process whereby American forces might be called upon to engage in combat in a lawless situation. But the so-called "CNN effect" that showed starving Somali mothers and babies on American television daily had a strong impact. Congress was inundated with mail calling for Washington to do something to stop the suffering.
In August 1992, as the U.S. presidential election campaign was beginning, President Bush ordered the U.S. military to begin a humanitarian relief airlift to Somalia. The airlift was based in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa, and was successful in alleviating food shortages around some of the major Somali airports such as Baidoa. However, in situations of major famine, airlifts are invariably insufficient because of the cargo limitations of aircraft. It was clear that the only solution to the problem of mass starvation (5000 Somalis were dying per week as of October 1992) was massive delivery by ship and overland truck transport. This could only take place, however, with military protection of the shipments against the predatory warlords who controlled Mogadishu's seaport and airport.
In November 1992, after he had lost the election to Bill Clinton, President Bush asked the State Department for recommendations with respect to the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Somalia. The Department recommended that the United State propose a UN-led military enforcement operation to open the way for food deliveries, without the use of American troops, but with the logistical support of U.S. military airlift. The Pentagon expressed the view that it would take at least six months for the United Nations to mount such an operation, and only the United States military had the capability of moving quickly.
On the basis of these recommendations, President Bush ordered a U.S.-led military operation to stop the starvation, provided that (1) the Security Council agreed, (2) there were troops of other countries to accompany U.S. forces, and (3) the United Nations take over the relief operation within six months. With all of these agreements in place, the first American forces arrived in Somalia in early December 1992. A number of other countries also sent troops to Somalia, including Botswana and Nigeria in Africa. In terms of ending the hunger cycle, the operation was a huge success. Within a matter of weeks, relief supplies were flowing smoothly, and the number of deaths from starvation and malnutrition had declined tremendously.
The American-led relief operation was turned over to United Nations control in May 1993, as originally planned. U.S. forces were reduced to 2,500 troops serving in a reserve capacity. Boutros-Ghali appointed retired American Admiral Jonathan Howe to head up the entire operation. With relief supplies flowing and agriculture revived, the UN operation became one of working to restore governmental institutions and basic security.
This prospect became a threat to some of the warlords in the Mogadishu area who feared for their economic interests. One of them, Mohammed Aideed, decided to take action to force the United Nations out. This took the form of guerrilla attacks on UN peacekeepers. In September 1993, his men ambushed and killed 25 Pakistani UN peacekeeping troops.
As a loyal commander, Admiral Howe felt that he had to take action to punish the perpetrators of this atrocity. However, instead of working through UN channels to obtain authorization to use military force, he worked through U.S. channels to organize a raid by American ranger troops on Mohammed Aideed's compound. This operation resulted in the disaster of October 3, 1993 in which 18 U.S. troops and many hundreds of Somalis died.
As a result of the October 3 disaster, President Bill Clinton decided to pull all forces out of Somalia and to close down the UN operation, thereby fulfilling Mohammed Aideed's objective. In addition, President Clinton cast public blame on the United Nations for the deaths of American troops, when the United Nations had nothing to do with the operation. This led to a steady decline in support for the UN within the American public and the United States Congress.
Over the years, it has become conventional wisdom in the press, and even in academic circles, to describe the U.S. operation in Somalia a failure because of the tragic events of October 3 1993. However, this is not the case. President Bush's objective of bringing a halt to the massive starvation caused by the warlords' interference in food distribution was fully successful. The operation was turned over to UN control as planned. It was only after the official U.S. handover of control that the tragedy with U.S. combat troops took place. It was a tragic occurrence, but the success of the U.S. operation to stop starvation cannot be disputed. President Bush senior deserves credit for this success.
In 1993, once again, the United States Government thought it was saying goodbye to Somalia, hoping never to have to deal with that troubled, failed state again. But, alas for Somalia, the events of September 11, 2001 led to a search for Al-Qaeda terrorists and their bases of operation throughout the world.
It was known to American intelligence agencies that Osama Bin Laden had sent Islamic "missionaries" to Somalia from Sudan in 1991-1992. These missionaries organized a Somali welfare organization called "Al Itihad". In addition to traditional work to establish clinics and schools, Al Itihad also organized armed militias designed to attack enemies of the Islamic revolution as defined by Bin Laden. These militias, based near the confluence of the Somali, Kenyan and Ethiopian borders, made guerrilla attacks inside Ethiopia. The Ethiopian army, under Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, reacted strongly to these attacks, invading Somali towns to find and root out the Al Itihad fighters and administrative structures. By the mid-1990s, the Ethiopians had succeeded in doing significant damage to the Al Itihad organization.
Because of the history of Al Itihad, and its ties to Osama Bin Laden, the American government naturally looked at Somalia in its worldwide survey of Al-Qaeda operations. The fact that Somalia remained an anarchic state raised suspicions that Al-Qaeda was actually operating or hiding in Somalia, or that Al-Qaeda fighters escaping from Afghanistan might be trying to go to Somalia in order to regroup and continue the war against the United States from there. Hence, there is currently a great deal of attention being paid to Somalia as the possible "next target" in America's response to the attacks of September 11, 2001.
While still a country without a government, Somalia continues to struggle to survive and restore central authority. It therefore remains vulnerable to external manipulation and penetration, as was Afghanistan during the period of Taliban rule. It is to be hoped that despite their suffering, the Somali people will reject any efforts by Al-Qaeda forces to exploit their weaknesses and use Somalia as a base of operations against the United States and the west. At the same time, the United States government should finally understand that failed states, such as Somalia, cannot be ignored in a globalized world, in which both productive and destructive forces cannot be contained within national boundaries.
Herman J. Cohen is a former American diplomat, who retired in 1993 with the rank of career ambassador after serving as Assistant Secretary of State for Africa in the first Bush administration and Senior Director for Africa on President Reagan's National Security Council staff. He is currently president of Cohen and Woods International, a Virginia-based consulting and lobbying firm.
Copyright © 2002 allAfrica.com. All rights reserved.
The Christian Science Monitor. January 08, 2002 edition
Somalis wary of growing US scrutiny
The US-led coalition is building up forces off the Somali coast.
By Danna Harman | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
EL WAK, SOMALIA - In village after village in southwest Somalia, everyone points a finger in the same direction. Terrorists, they say, are in El Wak.
With its 100 tin shacks, a few dozen mud huts, two mosques, one goat market, and one well, El Wak is not an inviting place. The sun beats down as swirls of dust whip into the eyes, coating body and hair. Water is scarce, employment is almost nonexistent. There are no telephones or electricity, no roads, no shade trees, no schools, no health clinics. The ground is littered with broken flip flops, old batteries, plastic bags, animal carcasses. Marabou storks rummage through the garbage. Old men cluster around tape recorders and listen to cassettes of religious instruction, following along in tattered Korans. The few taxes collected last year will help build a third mosque.
But are there terrorists here? The locals protest, but the US-led coalition is building up military forces off the coast and increasing surveillance activities.
The US is looking at several areas in Somalia where it suspects there are terrorist training camps with links to Al Qaeda, according to intelligence sources. Some are around the capital, Mogadishu, one is near Laascaanood in the north, one is on the island of Ras Kamboni, and one is here.
British, French, and US military reconnaissance flights have become more frequent in recent days, with US Navy P-3 planes doubling their missions over the country to four or five a week.
The Pentagon will soon have three Marine Expeditionary Units (with 1,200 troops each) patrolling the Somali coastline, ensuring Al Qaeda members escaping Afghanistan cannot find shelter on these lawless shores. Germany sent a fleet of six ships to the Horn of Africa Wednesday.
The US is continuing discussions with the Somali Reconciliation and Restoration Council (SRRC), a loose grouping of warlords backed by Ethiopia who oppose the government in Mogadishu and have pledged to fight terrorism. Ethiopia reportedly sent 70 officers to Baidoa last week to train members of SRRC for fighting, though Addis Ababa denies it.
Here in El Wak, the locals spend hours every day huddled around transistor radios, listening to crackling newscasts from afar, and wondering if they are next on the US list. "We used to be very fond of America," says Adam Gedo, chairman of the El Wak elders council. "But now we are fearful.... We don't know what we have done," he says. "If we hear a plane, we cover our eyes and pray, because we think it is the US coming to bomb us."
In the early 1990s, Al Ittihad Al Islamiya - a fundamentalist group calling for unity through religion and the institution of Islamic law - was a growing force in Somalia, and particularly strong here in the Gedo region. After being expelled from the town of Luuq in northeast Gedo, it made El Wak into its regional headquarters, throwing out the elected town council and moving into the dilapidated police post.
According to Hussein Mohammad Dires, the police chief in Bula Hawa, a small village north of here, Al Ittihad also set up military training camps around El Wak, where the faithful were taken through their paces by "Arab foreigners" in preparation for a global Islamic jihad. Dires and other regional leaders say Al Qaeda supported Al Ittihad's activities, supplying weapons and cash, and that Osama bin Laden himself once visited.
"After Sept. 11th, all those terrorists have gone into hiding," says Dires. "They are pretending to be regular civilians. They are hiding their guns at home. But they are still there in El Wak, just waiting for their opportunity to regroup and start trouble."
El Wak leaders protest that Al Ittihad was expelled from their village more than two years ago by a coalition of local tribes and the Ethiopians. The organization has disbanded, the locals say. "Those days are gone" says District Commissioner Yussuf Haji Osman. "We did not welcome them then, we would not do so now."
El Wak would not harbor Al Qaeda members, says Mr. Osman. "If they came here from Afghanistan, we would know. They are not Africans, so we would notice. We have security men here. We would arrest them and hand them right over to the FBI."
"When we heard what happened with the twin towers on the radio, we were very, very sorry," emphasizes the local imam, Sheikh Ali Abdi Mohammad, an elderly gentleman with a red-tinted beard and a staff in his hand. "We like America very much, and we invite you to like us too. Anyway, Islam cannot allow for any killing. That is not what I preach."
The US is aware that it needs to be cautious about intelligence reports from the Ethiopians and warlords, says one US offical, especially given the complex regional politics. Yet, there are still reasons for concern, including the lack of security patrols or reliable law enforcement.
"We know there have been [Al Qaeda] training camps there, and that they have been active over the years, and that they ... go inactive when people get attentive to them," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said at a news conference last week. "They go in and out," he said.
Another Defense Department official told the Associated Press that Al Qaeda members, probably dozens, have in fact fled from Afghanistan to Somalia.
A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, says the department is satisfied the preventative measures in Somalia are sufficient for now, but the Defense Department is eager to take more proactive action against the suspected camps "very soon."
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher stressed Thursday that the administration has not decided what action, if any, it might take in Somalia. For the time being, he said, the US is simply "working to ensure that Somalia doesn't become a haven for terrorists."
"It is good to check before bombing," advises District Commissioner Osman. "Those who point at us as terrorists just want to harm us. We have done nothing. Please tell America there are good people in El Wak. We welcome you. We want you to uplift us. We do not want to be hurt."
Copyright © 2002 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.
The New York Times. January 6, 2002 (
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/06/international/africa/06SOMA.html)
TRACKING AL QAEDA
Somalia's Multitude of Factions Hinders Antiterror Efforts
By MARC LACEY
AIROBI, Kenya, Jan. 5 — One of Somalia's warlords says he sent an urgent letter to President Bush shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States telling him that there were terrorists in Somalia sympathetic to Osama bin Laden.
The warlord, Hussein Mohammed Aidid, advised Mr. Bush that Al Barakaat, the country's major money- transfer and telecommunications company, had ties to terrorists as well. He said he would be willing to help the United States in any way.
American officials said they did not remember receiving the communication. Even if they did, they said, they would not take advice from a warlord — especially one whose father, Mohammed Farah Aidid, was responsible for the killing of 18 United States Army troops in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, in 1993.
But the letter from Mr. Aidid illustrates one of the problems that the United States is facing as it scrutinizes Somalia for links to Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden's network. Clan rivalries are so bitter in this country that few claims by its multitude of leaders are reliable.
Since Mr. Aidid sent his letter, the United States has shuttered Al Barakaat for trafficking in terrorist money, and it has cited Al Itihaad, a militant religious group based in Somalia, as a terrorist organization with ties to Al Qaeda.
But pinning down the details of the country's terrorist ties has been difficult as factional groups scramble to position themselves to become the next Northern Alliance should the United States shift its military might from Afghanistan to Somalia.
The United States has acknowledged positioning ships in the waters off Somalia to prevent fleeing Al Qaeda fighters from taking advantage of the longest coastline in Africa. Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the commander of the allied operation in Afghanistan, said this week that surveillance flights off the coast of Somalia had been increased.
Warlords in Baidoa, a Somali town along the Ethiopian border, have reported that five American government agents visited them in mid- December to learn more about the presence of terrorists in the area..
Last week, a group of Somali faction leaders urged the United States to attack Islamic fundamentalists in the country. "There is no need for B- 52's and other bombers," said Gen. Aden Abdullahi Gabyow, chairman of the Somali Reconciliation and Reconstruction Council, an alliance of Ethiopia-backed leaders opposed to the Somali government. "Only an international ground force would be required."
President Abdiqassim Salad Hassan, leader of Somalia's interim government, has accused the warlords of trying to gain American backing by slinging irresponsible claims. He formed an antiterrorism task force in Mogadishu after Sept. 11. Last month, the authorities arrested 18 foreigners suspected of links with Al Qaeda. All of them have been released in recent days because no connections were found.
The United States does not recognize Mr. Hassan's government and American officials say they suspect that some people close to it may have connections to Al Itihaad. Officials in Ethiopia, a neighbor and rival of Somalia, have made similar claims.
In Puntland, a breakaway region in the north of the country, similar finger-pointing is occurring between the two men who both claim to be president there. Abdullahi Yusuf, who was elected by elders in 1998, has accused the man who challenges his leadership, Jama Ali Jama, of being an Islamic fundamentalist. Mr. Jama has urged the United States not to believe what it hears. He is innocent, he says, and reports of terrorist camps in Puntland are untrue. "The United States should not kill the poor people of Puntland for no apparent reason," he said recently.
In Somaliland, a breakaway region in the northwest, officials have been reaching out to the United States, as well, offering access to the country should the American military need a northern staging area.
The United States abandoned its embassy in Somalia in 1993 and began following developments there from across the border in Kenya. In the ensuing years, most of the country has been off-limits to American diplomats for security reasons.
Glenn S. Warren, the political officer who handles Somalia from the American Embassy in Nairobi, visited the capital just before Christmas on the first such trip since 1995. While there, he pointed no fingers but acknowledged that American officials were concerned about terrorists in the country. "I have not come to investigate centers belonging to Al Qaeda and I don't believe there are such centers in Mogadishu," he said. "However, it is possible that there are some individuals who have links with terrorists who are living in Somalia."
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
Militant Islam
The difficult future of holy struggle
The Economist print edition Jan 31st 2002
Islamist movements in the Arab world have been both helped and hampered by Osama bin Laden's war
IN 1967, Israel's rout of Arab armies stemmed the rise of pan-Arab nationalism. Will America's victory in Afghanistan quash militant Islam? Many Islamist radicals—jihadis, or disciples of holy struggle, as they style themselves—fear it may, and that Osama bin Laden's attack on America could jeopardise their efforts to overthrow “corrupt” and “heretical” Arab regimes.
Already, the radicals are torn by dissent. On one side stand the nationalists who have waged local or regional jihads, often with considerable savagery, against third-world regimes. On the other are the globalists, led by Mr bin Laden, who want to take on the world. At issue is not the aim—all jihadis believe that one day the whole world will be Muslim—but the timing. Mr bin Laden's mistake, says one North African who fought alongside him, was to declare war when the United States was at the peak of its power.
The quarrel dates back at least to 1987, when Mr bin Laden, then a young acolyte of the non-violent Muslim Brotherhood, revealed that he had a “vision” of an Islamic superstate. Muhammad had toppled the two great empires of the day, Persia and Byzantium. Mr bin Laden had helped to topple the Russians in Afghanistan, and now only America remained. He sought to rein in those fighting civil wars in the Arab world, saying that jihad should be waged solely against non-Muslims.
At first, the Egyptian, Algerian and Libyan radicals bitterly resented this. Their struggle, as they saw it, was against corrupt tyrants in the Arab world who were resisting the creation of Islamic states. For them, jihad was a necessary struggle of the weak against the evil and strong. But compromises were arranged. The leader of Egyptian Jihad, Ayman al-Zawahari, a shy Cairo doctor, joined Mr bin Laden's war on the West, and Mr bin Laden accepted the legitimacy of jihad against North Africa's rulers on the ground that they were all western stooges. The ideological partnership was sealed with the marriage of the daughter of Mr Zawahari's deputy, Muhammad Ataf, to Mr bin Laden's son.
As the global movement expanded its operations in Kashmir, Chechnya and Bosnia, dissenters held their tongues, or drifted away. No longer. Now it is the global jihadis who have slipped away—because they are dead, in hiding or muzzled in Cuban cages—and the local radicals are raising their voices again.
One such voice belongs to Mustafa Zayat, a lawyer whose shabby fifth-floor office in Cairo was for a decade the public face of jihad in Egypt. Mr Zayat was under constant threat: the lift to his office tampered with, the brakes cut in his car. He and his four lawyer-colleagues served jail terms in rotation. But Mr Zayat was always uneasy about Mr Zawahiri's partnership with Mr bin Laden, believing that it would make Arab regimes more repressive and alienate potential friends.
So it has turned out. The attack on the Twin Towers has both galvanised the West and given a green light to Arab regimes to repress their radicals by all means possible. “Those who carry out terrorist acts have no claims to human rights,” says Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, calling for a global crackdown on the Islamists who are his most effective opposition. At least 20,000 people are now detained in Egypt without trial.
Ever since the Iranian revolution in 1979, Middle Eastern police states have considered themselves as bulwarks against an Islamist tide. Western governments used to argue, though not very vehemently, that systematic repression and autocracy were also a cause of Islamist unrest. Not now. In the wake of September 11th, western countries, hitherto a haven for Arab Islamists, have acceded to demands from Arab governments to round up Islamist exiles. Across Europe, new laws have been introduced to intern foreigners. Nor is the crackdown restricted to militant groups. Insiders say at least 23 European leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest Islamist group professing non-violence, have been called in by the police and interrogated.
Arab regimes are gloating that the West is learning their language. The United States must construct its “own fight against terror on our model,” says Egypt's prime minister, Atif Obeid. On a visit to Syria in mid-January, American congressmen were treated to a lecture on how to fight terrorism from Bashar Assad, the president of a state which, according to America, sponsors terrorism itself. Syria's way of fighting terrorism was seen in 1982, when its tanks charged through the ancient city of Hama, the Muslim Brotherhood's heartland. Twenty years on, 25,000 Syrians are still missing and 100,000 are in exile. As a result, Syria would argue, it has saved itself from a militant Sunni uprising.
Even before September 11th, the American State Department had reined back its democracy programmes in the Arab world. Tunisia was implausibly characterised as a “stable democratic country” and America's promotion of Tunisian democracy was limited to money for training army officers. The Bush administration puts little or no pressure on Israel over its trampling of human rights in the occupied territories. At one time America defended al-Jazeera, the satellite television station that broadcasts across the Middle East from Qatar, from would-be muzzlers in Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Egypt. But during a visit to the White House last October the emir of Qatar was asked to stop it broadcasting Mr bin Laden's tapes.
Our son-of-a-bitch
In the minds of many Americans, the Islamist peril has filled the void left by the demise of communism. The rulers of Arab police states have become their allies. Even Libya's Colonel Qaddafi has had his pariah status waived. After a 15-year absence, Algeria's president has twice been feted at the White House in recent months. Algeria provided a list of 350 exiles allegedly linked to al-Qaeda. (Israel, Egypt and Libya have also provided such lists.) In return, the Bush administration is said to have eased restrictions on arms sales to Algeria to equip its security forces, despite the fact that 10,000 people disappeared during the country's brutal civil war.
In most cases, the suspects on the “terrorist lists” being given to America are waging local, not global, battles. But, for the moment, no Arab government will face penalties for increasing its repression. Nor will they have to contend with lectures from the West on the evils of summary tribunals or detention without trial. Britain and America, after all, are doing the same. Even hard-core human-rights activists fret about writing letters to save mainly Islamist prisoners of conscience.
Take the little-publicised case of a small Egyptian Islamist group, al-Waad (the Promise). Some of its members were caught collecting money for the Palestinian intifada, a jihad that even the government's Muslim leader, Sheikh al-Tantawi, says is legitimate. Eighty-three of them were put before a military court and charged with seeking to overthrow the president, a crime that carries the death penalty. In December, the police hauled 22 members of the Muslim Brotherhood before a military court at a remote desert compound.
As Arab governments use September 11th as an excuse to tighten their grip, similar round-ups have been organised in the Gulf, the Maghreb and the West. Less than a fortnight after the New York attack, Tunisia's ruling party declared that President Ben Ali would amend the constitution to let him serve a fourth five-year term; a Tunisian military court this week sentenced 34 Islamic militants to prison. American aid is already flowing to governments, like Egypt and Yemen, that keep their radicals quiet, and more will follow.
The enemy, or so they're told
Will the suppression work? Arab governments like to think that tough measures have crushed the menace already. The most recent attack on tourists in Egypt occurred five years ago. Life has returned to normal in the big cities of Algeria.
But the battle is far from over. Egypt and Saudi Arabia have not defeated jihad, but pushed it to the periphery of the Muslim world. Ousted from one country, jihadis have quickly resurfaced in another. Ejected from Pakistan at the end of the Afghan jihad in 1992, the mujahideen regrouped in Sudan and the West. Forced from Sudan in the mid-1990s, they dispersed to Yemen and back to Afghanistan.
Confronted with a global crackdown for the first time, the jihadi movement is likely to lie low for months. But silence does not mean defeat. The war in Afghanistan is not yet over. Mr bin Laden and some of his close consorts may have outwitted their American hunters, and his foot-soldiers have for the most part donned civilian clothes.
More important, for all the misgivings about his timing, Mr bin Laden has succeeded in recapturing the imagination of the Arab street. For years, observers had written off political Islam as a spent force without the know-how to run a state, or the organisation to mount an effective challenge. The ability to strike at the heart of America has confounded the doubters.
America, the enemy
For many Muslims, the Americans' pounding of Afghanistan and Iraq, and its insouciance about Israel's pounding of the Palestinians, have made it the principal enemy, the basic cause of the Arab world's ills. In prayer halls from Java to London, Muslims recite the Qunut, an additional raka'a, or prostration, added during times of calamity, accompanied by the words “May God destroy America.” Some radicals are returning from the West to their own countries. As new immigration rules and financial controls take hold, resentment is mounting.
The question for the jihadis is how to exploit their new-found appeal. Since its origins in the early 1970s, the current movement has been a clandestine assortment of cells. Unlike the Muslim Brotherhood, which sought publicity for its programme of reform, jihadis plotted in secret to launch coups d'état. Now they are reviewing their tactics.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack on New York, some jihadis envisaged a popular Islamic revolt on the Iranian model, possibly in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. Now they acknowledge they will need to plan for the longer term. They may take a leaf from the manual of Palestinian Islamic groups. These have not only won Arab plaudits for attacking the Israeli occupiers but have undermined Yasser Arafat for his attempts to be Israel's proxy policeman. They have thus raised the possibility of a militant Islamic alternative. Could the same policy—attacking colonial occupiers—be applied to America's military presence in the Muslim world?
There are precedents for success. Islamic groups dislodged American forces from Lebanon in 1982 and Somalia ten years later. Ten years on, many Muslims already subscribe to Mr bin Laden's analysis that the 5,000 American troops in Saudi Arabia and the 3,500 in Kuwait are occupying the holy land of the Arabian peninsula. In the coming months, that feeling will spread. From Bulgaria to Tajikistan, the United States is reported to be setting up 13 new military bases, with 60,000 troops, in nine Muslim countries. Preachers could pave the way by issuing fatwas declaring Americans “legitimate targets”, and jihadi exiles from the West could fan the flames just as they did when they returned home after winning the jihad against the Russians in Afganistan.
“The jihadi future has never been brighter”
For jihadi groups, the strategy has a twofold attraction. First, they will be fighting America on their home turf. Second, they will be shaking the Arab regimes which depend on American backing to stay in power. More repression will doubtless follow, but that too will help their cause. Arab regimes will be cast ever more as client states, while the United States will be tarnished for upholding them. And political Islam will gain a new generation of martyrs. “The jihadi future has never been brighter,” says a veteran observer.
“Violence is like virus,” adds Kamal Hilbawi, the former head of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe. “The more you bomb it, the more it spreads.” Since so many of its followers have been forced into exile, the jihadi ideology has been widely dispersed. Continued suppression has done the rest.
The jihadi movement continues to attract some of the Arab world's richest and most privileged. The hijackers who flew into the World Trade Centre were western-educated. Fifteen of them, out of 19, came from the Arab world's richest state, Saudi Arabia. Two of Gaza's suicide-bombers have been sons of millionaires. The vast majority of Arabs fighting with the Afghan mujahideen were graduates, and their leaders came from the Sunni aristocracy. Mr bin Laden belonged to the richest non-royal family in Saudi Arabia. Mr Zawahari was born to a landowning family. This is no peasants' revolt.
But if, as many jihadis claim, the Muslim street is boiling, it is hard to detect the agitation. The forecasts of mass demonstrations against America's bombing of Afghanistan never materialised. For almost a generation, the region's authoritarian rulers have defied predictions of their downfall. Syria, a secular republic, has already produced a dynasty. Iraq, Egypt and Libya threaten to do so. The Islamists, so far, have proved incapable of harnessing people's frustration. The Arab world, it seems, is still immune to popular change.
Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2002. All rights reserved.
Hope for a Changed Somalia
By Robert Macpherson
The Washington Post. February 6, 2002; Page A19
I traveled to Mogadishu for the first time in December 1992. Warlords were fighting their civil war by cutting off food supplies, and tens of thousands of people were starving to death. I was there with the U.S. Marines to subdue the warlords and make sure that the millions of dollars in aid reached its intended recipients. We quickly realized this would be a daunting task.
My time in Somalia is on my mind these days as the convergence of Hollywood and Pentagon attention has once again thrust this country into the media spotlight. During my tour, troops secured the airport, harbor and trucking routes for aid groups to deliver food and medicine safely. Thousands of lives were saved. I witnessed Americans die in Somalia, but when I left in April I felt our presence had made a difference. We had paid a price, but it was the right thing to do.
Then, in October 1993, the Black Hawks went down. I was angry and felt betrayed by the people my countrymen had saved.
I returned to Somalia in 1999, this time not as a U.S. Marine but as an aid worker. On arrival, I still wrestled with the same feelings of anger and betrayal. But as I watched the slow and agonizing rise of the Somali people from their deprivation and misery, I realized that they weren't the enemy. As in every place on this planet, Somalia has its heroes and its villains. And in 1993, a lot of people were caught up in the ruthlessness of the latter.
I have traveled to Somalia three times as an aid worker in support of CARE's education, health and food security programs. I balance my own views with the emotional and heartfelt thanks I receive from the many Somalis who know I came as a U.S. Marine in 1992. They are grateful for their children, who lived because we were there, for the medicine and food that saved their wives, husbands, fathers or mothers.
Obviously, not all is well in Somalia, as it remains one of the world's poorest countries. Thousands of women and children live in camps or on the streets, where they are mistreated and malnourished, particularly if they are of a rival clan or a minority group. One in five children die before reaching age 5, and 86 percent of children do not attend school.
But it appears that Somalia has hit bottom and is slowly on its way up. This is because its citizens, at last tiring of war, are taking responsibility for their lives. For instance, parents, tired of waiting for a government to educate their children, have opened their own schools, often at great personal expense and sacrifice. Private businesses, such as telephone, transport and financial companies, are defying the warlords to deliver goods and services. Irrigation canals and roads are being rehabilitated to support Somali agriculture and reduce reliance on outside aid. Food production has increased dramatically. Most important, significant local, regional and national attempts are being made at reconciliation and governance. The signs of hope are many.
Despite the signs of hope, Somalia is back in the daily news as a possible target in our war against terrorism. It is going to be tough to divorce our past involvement in Somalia from the new challenges that are bringing our attention back to this impoverished land. My modest hope is that as policy-makers work to hinder Somalia's villains, they also explore ways to bolster those quietly working for positive change. In Somalia and elsewhere, the everyday heroes are too many to overlook.
The writer is a retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel with 25 years of service, including Vietnam, Desert Storm and Somalia. He currently serves as director of the protection and security unit for the international aid organization CARE.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20011231/3736124s.htm
Somalis 'welcome' U.S. attack
By Thor Valdmanis
USA TODAY
MOGADISHU, Somalia -- For many people in this bombed-out capital, the United States can't bring its war on terrorism to their country soon enough.
''Tell Rumsfeld I'm happy the Americans are coming,'' says Sabri Mohammed, 16, referring to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Mohammed manages an electronics shop where cartons of Chinese stereos and Japanese televisions are stacked to the ceiling. He says he hopes U.S. forces can bring peace and stability to his country: ''We need a rest from the tribal fighting.''
Even local warlords, the men responsible for destroying a U.S.-led peacekeeping effort here eight years ago, say they want to see the United States attack terrorist sites in Somalia.
''Americans should not worry about something like 1993 happening again,'' says Mohammed Kanyare Afrah, a wealthy businessman who controls 4,000 fighters and large areas of the capital and countryside. ''We've had enough. We want to help'' in the war on terrorism.
That's the mood of many in Mogadishu. Known in happier times as the Pearl of Africa, this city is now a lawless, dangerous place that makes shattered Kabul, Afghanistan, look orderly in comparison.
Four warring factions claim control of the city. Their drug-addled militiamen patrol in pickups fitted with anti-aircraft guns. Firefights regularly erupt, fueled by half a million guns in a city of 2 million destitute people. Civil war has reduced most of the buildings to piles of rubble. There hasn't been an effective central government in Somalia since 1991. Dozens of warlords and local heavyweights have divided up the countryside.
Not surprisingly, this failed city and nation, with a labyrinth of feuding clans and subclans, have become a prime hideaway for terrorists. U.S. investigators say, and court testimony has shown, that Somalia was the launching pad for the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. The bombings are believed to have been orchestrated by Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist network.
Now the United States has to decide what to do about Somalia. Rumsfeld and other top Pentagon officials say there's been no firm decision on whether this place will be the next target for U.S. forces. But the ominous presence in recent weeks of several U.S. warships just off the coast in the Indian Ocean seems to be a clear signal that Somalia's turn could come soon.
Militant group
If targets are attacked in Somalia, likely to be hit first is a militant group called al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, or Islamic Unity. U.S. officials say the group has strong links to bin Laden and the embassy bombings.
Al-Itihaad was born out of an Islamic student movement at Mogadishu University in the late 1980s. After a series of humiliating military defeats over the past three years, al-Itihaad no longer controls any territory. It now works more subtly, recruiting at educational institutions and penetrating the judiciary and businesses, often with the financial support of Arab donors in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, U.S. officials say.
Members of Somalia's nascent Transitional National Government say there are no links between bin Laden and al-Itihaad. The TNG, formed in August 2000 at a conference in neighboring Djibouti, says al-Itihaad's leaders have fled to Saudi Arabia, Syria and the United Arab Emirates.
The warlords in northern and central Somalia say they, too, have no connections to al-Itihaad. They say the group gets assistance only from warlords in the south, who in turn get support from the government of neighboring Ethiopia.
The United States has been wary of Somalia since it ended its most recent mission there in the early 1990s. America led efforts to bring humanitarian aid here, and it sent troops to prevent food and medical shipments from being looted by the roaming gangs.
That relief effort ended after U.S. Army Rangers were attacked while on a raid in Mogadishu in October 1993. The fight left 18 commandos dead. But the Americans killed hundreds of their attackers and accomplished the goal of their raid: the capture of 19 supporters of warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid.
Memories of that experience -- dramatized in the movie Black Hawk Down -- are likely one reason U.S. planners aim to limit the extent of any military campaign in Somalia.
The United States is also under pressure from Arab leaders, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and some European allies. Those parties have expressed reservations about expanding the military campaign to Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Indonesia, the Philippines or other countries where international terrorists are thought to be operating. They worry about civilian casualties and stirring further unrest among militant Muslim groups.
Many Somalis, however, say they do hope that the Americans come here soon, take aggressive action and stay for a while to lend humanitarian aid and support. They warn that a quick attack and then withdrawal could just make conditions here worse -- creating an environment that produces more terrorists bent on attacking the West.
Critics of U.S. foreign policy say that's what happened in Afghanistan: In the 1980s, the United States poured weapons and aid into that country to fight the Soviet Union, but then lost interest after the Soviets withdrew in 1989.
Cash needed
''We need hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in aid, but the chances of getting that right now are zero'' because of the danger, says Abdurahman Ibrahim, a senior adviser to the TNG. But, he says, ''if the Americans supported us now, they would gain a valuable and loyal friend.''
What some Somali warlords and many citizens say they want is a copy of what's now happening in Afghanistan: military strikes that cripple terrorist cells, followed by humanitarian aid and assistance with forming a national government and reducing tensions between rival warlords.
The humanitarian need is urgent. The U.N. says 300,000 Somalis in the southern part of the country face starvation because of a drought that has produced the smallest crop harvest in seven years.
Bringing political order to Somalia also is crucial, people here say, but incredibly difficult. The TNG says it is trying to establish a broad-based, secular government, modeled on those in Egypt and Jordan. Peace talks aimed at brokering a power-sharing agreement among the TNG and various warlords who control different parts of the country were held in Kenya this month.
But the chances of success at any peace talks appear slim. Ethiopia, which has been at war with Somalia twice in the past four decades, has refused to allow the warlords it controls in the south to attend the conference.
The TNG and Kenya want the United States to play a more active role in Somalia's reconstruction while forcing Ethiopia to stop supporting Somali warlords. Kenya, meanwhile, fears more instability, guns and refugees spilling over its border from an unstable Somalia.
Somalis also want the Bush administration to agree to the lifting of an international freeze on assets of al-Barakaat, this country's largest bank. The United States suspects that al-Barakaat has helped finance al-Qaeda. But Somalis, whose average annual income is about $600, say they badly need the $250 million a year that overseas relatives send to family members here via al-Barakaat.
''What a mess. Can you imagine shutting down Citibank or MCI in the U.S.? Somalis have been cut off from the rest of the world,'' says al-Barakaat spokesman Khalif Farah, who left his job and family in Alexandria, Va., a month ago to advise the company.
Farah says al-Barakaat, whose majority owner is Sheik Ahmed Ali Jimale of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, denies any wrongdoing.
City of desperation
The extent of Somalia's problems is obvious.
In this city, most residents live in canvas tents sitting on empty lots or alongside garbage-strewn streets. Bodies of cats and dogs, most dead of starvation, litter the roads.
Signs of lawlessness are everywhere. Boys in their early teens cradle guns. Militia fighters wielding AK-47 rifles speed up and down the streets in SUVs. They seem to pay no heed to which side of the road they tear down. Many are glassy-eyed from chewing a local plant called khat, an amphetamine-like stimulant that counts as one of the country's few thriving exports. It's popular in Yemen and the Persian Gulf states.
At makeshift roadblocks throughout the city, armed bandits demand ''tolls.'' Local businessmen and government officials must hire small armies of gunmen for protection.
Last Friday, nine people were killed in fighting between police and militia here. Three were civilians caught in the crossfire. The firefight was sparked by a dispute over attempts by police to reorganize a market controlled by the militia.
''This is a very dangerous time,'' says Col. Ab Abdi Hassan Awale, Mogadishu's police chief. ''There is no law and order, there is civil war, there is tribe fighting. Now we may get bombed by the Americans.''
Rumors swirl in the streets that Delta Force and Green Beret commandos have conducted raids in southern Somalia. Last week, local media warned of an imminent U.S. invasion. Some residents have left the city in fear of airstrikes.
But most here say they hope for U.S. intervention. ''We welcome the Americans,'' says Hasam Abdi Ali, 45, a TNG soldier who has been fighting for one clan or another for 27 years. ''We need their help.''
There's one quantifiable measure of how certain Somalis are that an attack is coming: In markets, AK-47s are readily available.
When there's heavy fighting between warlords, the guns are in great demand and sell for as much as $350. But recently, the price was less than $250. Many people, sellers say, are convinced that U.S. troops will confiscate all weapons. So there's no point buying any right now.
''AK-47s are cheaper now, thanks to the Americans,'' says Mohammed Hasan Gafa, 30, a hotel clerk. But Gafa hasn't been lured into a false sense of security.
Like many Somali men his age, he owns an AK-47. He never goes out without it.
© Copyright 2002 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
The Christian Science Monitor. December 13, 2001 edition
'TOLL ROAD': A government tax collector counts cash from a truck driver, as soldiers help man a roadblock near Mogadishu and keep a wary eye on the surrounding hills.
SVEN TORFINN
A taxing time to rule Somalia
The year-old government is stumbling as US scrutiny of its role in terrorism compounds challenges.
By Mike Crawley | Special to The Christian Science Monitor
MOGADISHU, SOMALIA - Tax collectors are hardly welcomed with warm smiles in most countries. But here in Somalia, when the government's fledgling tax collection system goes to work, it's accompanied by some 150 armed men and a couple of pickups mounted with antiaircraft guns.
Ramshackle trucks, carrying everything from imported plastic sandals to slabs of meat, stop at the flimsy rope barrier on the dusty road from the port north of the capital. Their drivers visit the man with the rubber stamp and receipt book, sitting in the shade of a thorn tree. Somali shillings are exchanged for a stamped square of paper, while the armed contingent eyes the surrounding barren hills.
Through this low-tech method, the government has collected about 100 million shillings ($4,000) a day here since it began the process three months ago. It's a small amount, but the fact that a government of any sort is managing to collect any tax in this country, battered by 10 years of civil war, is a sign of progress.
"Before the government, there were a lot of checkpoints run by militia," says driver Abdullahi Hussein as he waits in a truck filled with stones for construction. "Wherever you'd go, they'd say: 'You have to pay 5,000, you have to pay 10,000.' " He says the government is providing a measure of security in exchange for the tax, while the old militia checkpoints were nothing more than extortion.
That was the kind of change promised by the Somali transitional national government (TNG), inaugurated with a flurry of hope a little over a year ago after a lengthy peace conference in neighboring Djibouti.
Some successes came quickly. The government reduced the number of rogue militiamen wandering Mogadishu's streets by remobilizing some 18,000 men into the police and Army. It persuaded a couple of former warlords to come onto their side. And there was even talk that the United Nations might re-establish a presence in Mogadishu, which it had fled for safety reasons.
But in recent months, setbacks have outnumbered the government's accomplishments. A no-confidence vote in October resulted in the dismissal of the cabinet. The country's biggest single economic sector - remittances from Somalis working overseas - suffered a blow when the US shut down the largest money-transfer company for allegedly funding Osama bin Laden. (US military officials met Sunday with the antigovernment Rahanwein Resistance Army, which recently reported activity by local Islamic groups linked to Al Qaeda, the wires reported.) The $120 million livestock industry was crippled after Gulf states banned imports from Somalia because of an outbreak of Rift Valley fever. Even the weather isn't cooperating: The most recent harvest is being described as Somalia's poorest in seven years, the result of a drought.
The initial surge of donations to the government from Arab states has shriveled, while Western donors remain unwilling to contribute, and recent militia attacks halted tax collection efforts in Bakara, Mogadishu's biggest market. As a result, the government is nearly broke. The police and army haven't been paid their $50 monthly salary in three months.
"Somalia needs the help of the international community," admits President Abdiqassim Salad Hassan.
His position is supported by Randolph Kent, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Somalia. Mr. Kent says that the international community does not need to impose a solution or pour millions of dollars into the country, but does need to support the progress that Somalis have made in re-establishing a semblance of order on their own.
"Until there's engagement, I think it's going to be difficult for progress to be made," says Kent.
A Western diplomat says a large part of the international community believes the government "can serve as a basis for national reconciliation."
"The TNG has survived longer than some people thought it would," he says. "It's got militia, it's established a framework for government, but that's where it ends."
Somalia's government lacks authority over two fundamental things that define a government: printing currency and controlling territory.
Businessmen arbitrarily order huge consignments of bank notes, flooding the market and causing huge inflation. While it cost 10,000 Somali shillings to buy a US dollar last December, this year it costs almost 25,000. Two months ago, big businesses simply stopped accepting the 500 shilling note, worth about 2 cents, prompting riots by small traders.
The government holds little territory beyond Mogadishu, and doesn't even control the whole capital, plagued by warlords who have refused to give up the gun. Indeed, key warlords opposed to the government said they would not take part in peace talks due to begin today in Nairobi, Kenya, the wires reported.
Half of the country is covered in the territory of Somaliland and Puntland, two breakaway regions with their own administrations.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan gave a blunt assessment of the government's strength in a recent report to the Security Council: "There is no single authority in the country that can assure security and unimpeded access to the United Nations, even in Mogadishu."
At a Koranic school, surrounded by shops selling car parts in Mogadishu, dozens of children study under Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Muhidiin, a religious leader who sports an embroidered cap and dark glasses.
"The government is making progress," says Sheikh Sharif. "The most important thing is to create security in Mogadishu. After that, we can do schooling, healthcare. But first it is the security."
TOM BROWN - STAFF
Copyright © 2002 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.
The New York Times. December 9, 2001
Somali Bantu, Trapped in Kenya, Seek a Home
By MARC LACEY
ADAAB, Kenya Dec. 4 — Abdullahi Ali Ahmed was born in Somalia and spent most of his life there. On a recent day as he crouched in the dirt in a sliver of shade in a refugee camp here full of Somalis, Mr. Ahmed declared just how little attachment he felt to the country.
"We don't feel like Somalis," said Mr. Ahmed, 27, who fled civil war in Somalia in 1992. "We were born in Somalia. We've lived in Somalia. But we've never been treated as though we belonged."
The 133,000 refugees crowded into three desolate camps here near the Kenya-Somalia border are living at the bottom of the barrel. Food rations are meager and conditions grim. But even here there is a pecking order, and Bantu like Mr. Ahmed are at the bottom.
The camp they now call home sits in some of Kenya's most inhospitable terrain, vast stretches of arid land where rainfall is a cause for celebration. Their dwellings are closely packed mud huts in which some refugees have lived now for a decade.
Historians trace the Somali Bantu back to a region farther south, along Africa's eastern edge to what is now Mozambique, Malawi and Tanzania.
Centuries ago, the Bantu were carried to Somalia by Arab slave traders, and the discrimination against them by Somalia's kaleidoscope of clans has continued.
Mr. Ahmed complained bitterly about how he was treated in Somalia as he awaited an interview here with officials from the United Nations refugee agency that might clear the way for his departure to the United States. As many as 10,000 others hope to make the same journey.
The Somali Bantu, also known as the Mushunguli, recount a host of abuses by their Somali compatriots. There were the slurs hurled against them by Somalis with more Arab lineage over their darker skin and African features. Their land and produce were frequently seized; the women and girls among them were often raped by militiamen.
Conditions grew even worse after 1991, when Somalia was divided up into a checkerboard of rival turfs upon the fall of its dictator, Muhammad Siad Barre. Many Somali Bantu, with no warlord to protect them, were caught up in the fighting.
Unfortunately, life did not improve markedly for those Bantu who slipped across the border into Kenya's northern fringe. In the refugee camps, the Bantu, a tiny minority in Somalia, faced the same indignities they had suffered back home in the Juba River Valley.
After searching for years for a country that would accept the group, the refugee agency has struck a deal under which they may be resettled in communities across the United States over the next two years.
Over the last decade, the United Nations has tried in vain to resettle the group of Somali Bantu to their ancestral land in what was once a vast area controlled by the sultan of Zanzibar, who was based on the semiautonomous island off the Tanzanian coast.
Tanzania decided against taking in the Bantu, saying it had its hands full with refugees from Rwanda and Burundi. Similarly, Mozambique bowed out even though officials there found that some older Bantu Somalis shared languages and tribal customs with those in the northern part of that country.
A decision by the United States in 1999 to declare the Bantu Somalis a persecuted group eligible for possible entry into the United States has not ended the Bantu's plight.
Resettlement is always a laborious exercise, and the Sept. 11 attacks have added additional scrutiny — and delay — to the process.
One complication for the Somali Bantu was a corruption scandal in the Nairobi office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Reports that some workers were selling refugee slots to the highest bidder prompted American officials to insist on additional reviews of those Bantu seeking asylum.
Then came the attacks on the United States, which put a two-month hold on resettlements around the world. Some refugee officials in Africa fear that the Bantu, who converted to Islam in recent generations, may be less welcome these days, especially with talk of Somalia possibly becoming a target of the American antiterrorism campaign.
Already, refugee experts say that one United States community, which they did not name, has expressed misgivings about taking in the Somali Bantu, after initial enthusiasm.
But the Bantu say they are not true Somalis and should not be penalized for the actions of Somalis who may be sympathizers of Osama bin Laden.
Meanwhile, registration of the Bantu is going forward, and refugee officials and advocates remain confident that the group will find a home. "I think people make a distinction between refugees and terrorists," said Mary Ann Wyrsch, a former official in the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service who is now the United Nations' deputy high commissioner for refugees.
The United States has not yet guaranteed any of the Somali Bantu admission. After the United Nations interviews, they will face queries by immigration officials, medical tests and background checks.
Despite all that, members of the group here have already begun dreaming of their new lives.
"It's going to be so different there," said Kamis Muhammad Alahal, 30, in the crowded camp where he lives with his wife and four children. "I won't be treated like a slave anymore. I'll be a modern man."
As it is, Mr. Alahal and other Bantu Somalis have become popular, for a change, among other Somalis. Some non-Bantu offer them cash to slip their names onto the list. Others seek to pass themselves off as relatives of Somali Bantu.
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information
Somalia's government and warlords
A patchwork of fiefs
Nov 1st 2001 | MOGADISHU
The Economist
Somalia's parliament has voted out the government. So what?
BEST known for having no government to speak of, Somalia lost what it had this week. On October 28th, the prime minister, Ali Khalif Galaid, lost a vote of no-confidence, which has given him and his 84-member cabinet a month's notice to step down.
His transitional government, which was elected last year at a conference of businessmen, academics and former officials, is recognised by the United Nations, but not by many Somalis. It controls half of Mogadishu and a short strip of coastline. Southern and central Somalia is a patchwork of fiefs. The north has broken away into two separate entities: Somaliland and Puntland.
The parliament which voted Mr Galaid out, by 141 votes to 29, meets in a former police-training college. Its old building is now in the possession of Hussein Mohamed Farah Aideed, a warlord who does not recognise the government, though he drives, with his artillery, unmolested through the capital's rubble-strewn streets.
Somalia's “opposition” consists mainly of similar gunmen, who are prepared to oppose the government but only if it dares step on their particular patch. Musa Sude Yalahow, a former driver who controls much of Mogadishu, says that a central government might be a good idea-so long as it recognised his sub-clan's ownership of the capital. Not far away is Muhammad Qanyare's turf. He joined the government-being minister of fisheries is handy for his fishing fleets-but is hardly more committed to it. He will allow the police into his area “if they can give me a good enough reason”. So far they have not.
The government set about soothing tribal rivalries by sharing cabinet posts between clans and sub-clans. But the result was that ministers owed allegiance not to the government but to the clan elders who nominated them. Mr Galaid then tried to rule dictatorially. But this did not work, either.
Most Somalis are fed up with tribal politics. Some speak nostalgically of the days of Siad Barre, the despot toppled in 1991. Many welcomed the new lot, even though the president, Abdiquassim Salad Hassan, was Mr Barre's interior minister. But the government has failed to unite the country against the warlords. Instead, it has tried to buy them off in various ways: 15,000 ex-militiamen are now paid as policemen.
This has cost the government most of its money, and it still dare not deploy the new policemen throughout Mogadishu for fear they will return to their former masters. The Arab League has promised $400m to rebuild Somalia, but not until order returns. Peace talks began in Kenya on November 1st, but without several key warlords or much optimism.
Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2002. All rights reserved.
Somalia and the United States: A Long and Troubled History
allAfrica.com.OPINION
January 21, 2002
Herman J. Cohen, Washington, DC
The arrival of the film "Blackhawk Down" in cinemas in the United States and around the world reminded Americans that Somalia has never been far from the center of Washington's national security concerns. This vivid memory of the tragedy that befell American soldiers and Mogadishu fighters on October 3, 1993, comes at a time when Somalia is drawing worldwide attention as a potential hiding place for Al-Qaeda terrorists seeking to escape from U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Starting as far back as the Second World War (1939-1945), the United States paid particular attention to Somalia in its Africa policy. Since Italy was an enemy nation, allied with Nazi Germany and the Axis powers in the Second World War, Italian-controlled Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia were early military targets of the United Nations powers. Thanks to British forces based in Kenya, these territories were among the first to be liberated from Axis control in 1942. This was important to the United States because Mogadishu, Asmara and Djibouti were relay stations for U.S. forces operating in the Middle East.
Even before the end of the Second World War, the problem of Somali irredentism caused some friction between the United States and Britain. In August 1944, the British proposed to consolidate all Somali peoples into one nation, including the Ogaden, Italian Somaliland and French Somaliland, which became Djibouti. (Of course, they conveniently omitted the Somalis living in northeast Kenya, a key British colony..)
The United States objected to the inclusion of the Ogaden in Somaliland because Ethiopia had entered the war as an independent state and as an ally of the United Nations powers. For the same reason, the U.S. acquiesced in the amalgamation of the Italian colony of Eritrea with Ethiopia, without consulting the people of Eritrea.
After the merger of the Italian and British Somalilands into one independent nation in 1960, the United States regarded Mogadishu as an important African country given its strategic location next to the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. Following the military takeover led by Mohammed Siad Barre in October 1969, and his adoption of "scientific socialism" as Somali state policy, Somalia became a pawn in the Cold War between Washington and Moscow. The country's strategic location made the U.S.-Soviet competition all the more intense.
The essence of Siad Barre's foreign policy was Somali nationalism and irredentism, with a focus on uniting all Somali people under one flag. This policy constituted a major threat to Ethiopia's Ogaden region, where the vast majority of the inhabitants are Somalis. The policy also provided an opening for the Soviets, who had no inhibitions about pouring arms into Somalia in order to menace Ethiopia, America's main ally in the Horn Africa. As part of this process, the Soviets developed an air and naval facility in the port city of Berbera on Somalia's northwest coast.
With a key communications' base in Asmara, the United States countered the Somali arms buildup with a major military assistance program to the Ethiopian regime of Emperor Haile Selassie. Armed clashes between Somalia and Ethiopia took place on a regular basis, mainly in the Ogaden region. It was in this area that the first test of American and Soviet air power took place, with Ethiopian F-5 American-built aircraft demonstrating superiority over the Somali Mig-16s supplied by the Soviets.
In 1975, U.S. policy toward Somalia took an ironic 180-degree turn, when a military coup in Ethiopia overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie in favor of a Marxist pro-Soviet group known as the DERGUE, under the leadership of Mengistu Haile Merriam. This gave the Soviets an opening to become close to the Ethiopians in order to further undermine U.S. influence and gain control over the Red Sea lanes leading to the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf. The Soviet aim was to use their friendship with both Ethiopia and Somalia to reconcile the two feuding powers as "Marxist brothers." However, they failed to understand that in the mind of Siad Barre, the friend of their enemy (Ethiopia) could not be simultaneously a friend of Somalia. For Siad Barre, Somali irredentism was much more important than Marxist scientific socialism.
As U.S.-Ethiopian relations cooled in the aftermath of the 1975 Mengistu coup, U.S.-Somali relations warmed. The United State increased military and economic assistance to Somalia, and the U.S. Embassy in Mogadishu became one of the biggest American diplomatic missions in Africa. However, the U.S. faced a dilemma in its relations with Somalia because Washington did not want to be responsible for supporting Somali aggression against the Ethiopian Ogaden. Thus, Washington had to walk a fine line between the supply of defensive weapons to the Somali army, while parrying Siad Barre's constant demand for offensive weapons with which to attack Ethiopia.
Using offensive weapons purchased from Italy and other suppliers, Siad Barre attacked Ethiopia in the aftermath of the 1975 Mengistu takeover, hoping to take advantage of the disarray in the Ethiopian military. In order to counter Somalia's initial military successes in the Ogaden in 1977, Ethiopia called for assistance from the Soviet Union, who financed the arrival of 5,000 Cuban troops. The Cubans helped defeat the invading Somali army.
The deployment of Fidel Castro's Cuban troops to both Ethiopia and Angola in the period 1975-1976 was the major cause of the death of the policy of detente between the U.S. and the USSR. The Cold War had flared up again in Africa, and once again, Somalia was deeply involved.
In 1979, U.S. relations with Somalia took another turn after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. U.S. military analysts feared that the invasion was just the beginning of a major Soviet military push into Iran and the Persian Gulf oil producing areas. President Jimmy Carter reacted to this analysis by ordering the State Department to negotiate military base rights and facilities in the Gulf region. Saudi Arabia and other Arab states surrounding the Persian Gulf said they wanted American protection from the Soviet threat, but preferred that U.S. military components remain "over the horizon", and out of sight. The logical alternative to bases directly in the Gulf countries was to have facilities in East Africa. Thus, between 1979 and 1980, the U.S. negotiated to take over the former Soviet naval and air facility in the Somali port of Berbera and proceeded to upgrade the runway and docks in a project costing $35 million.
With Berbera becoming a key component of U.S. military planning in the defence of the Persian Gulf region, U.S.-Somali relations became even more important to Washington. This created yet another dilemma for U.S. policy, because the Siad Barre dictatorship became increasingly harsh, repressive and corrupt during the decade of the 1980s. Human rights groups in the U.S. and elsewhere criticized the American policy of providing military support to the Siad Barre regime. There were efforts in Congress to cut off military assistance to Somalia. These succeeded in 1989, so Washington had to maintain relations with Siad Barre solely through the supply of humanitarian and economic assistance.
During the second half of the 1980s, Somalia sank more and more deeply into civil war and lawlessness, as various clan groups armed themselves in opposition to Siad Barre's murderous regime. In 1990, Siad Barre's military had lost control of most of the country and was reduced mainly to defending Mogadishu.
Throughout this period, the United States continued to maintain good relations with Siad Barre because of the overriding imperative of maintaining military access to Berbera. In mid-1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, setting off a major security crisis in the Persian Gulf. It was for such a contingency that the U.S. had maintained strong ties with Siad Barre, despite his invasions of Ethiopia and his despicable human rights record. But in an irony of ironies, the American military suddenly found itself welcomed to the Persian Gulf and was able to base its fighting units inside Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries in preparation for the fight to drive Iraq out of Kuwait. Thus, the United States did not need Berbera in the Gulf War, and the reason for the friendship with Siad Barre fell away.
By early 1991, Siad Barre had been driven out of office and out of Somalia by his clan enemies, the Cold War had formally ended, and the Dergue regime in Ethiopia had been defeated and replaced by Tigrayan and Eritrean guerrilla armies. Unlike Ethiopia, where a new government was able to restore order and take control expeditiously, Somalia fell into a state of anarchy after Siad Barre's departure. Mogadishu was especially hit by clan warfare, lawlessness and banditry. The newly constructed U.S. Embassy was invaded by bandits, with the entire American staff and diplomats from other nations escaping on helicopters sent by the American military operating in the nearby Gulf war. Thus, in January 1991, it looked as if the United States had reached the point of forgetting about Somalia, which in strategic terms had reverted to being just another troubled backwater.
But Somalia could not be forgotten. By early 1992, in the absence of a central government, the country's humanitarian situation was becoming disastrous. This was especially true in southern Somalia, where marauding clan armies were fighting over the different quarters of Mogadishu, as well as the cities of Baidoa and Kismayu. With the security situation so dangerous, farmers were unable to plant and harvest. Efforts by the United Nations and private relief organizations to deliver food to the hungry were thwarted by warlords who were using relief goods as bargaining chips for money and power.
By mid-1992, the UN was reporting growing starvation in southern Somalia, with infants, nursing mothers and the elderly as the chief victims. Thus, Somalia again became a major policy issue for the United States government.
Efforts by UN Secretary General Boutros Boutro-Ghali to persuade the UN Security Council in early 1992 to consider the use of peacekeepers to help alleviate starvation in Somalia were blocked, mainly by the United States. The U.S. military were reluctant to start a process whereby American forces might be called upon to engage in combat in a lawless situation. But the so-called "CNN effect" that showed starving Somali mothers and babies on American television daily had a strong impact. Congress was inundated with mail calling for Washington to do something to stop the suffering.
In August 1992, as the U.S. presidential election campaign was beginning, President Bush ordered the U.S. military to begin a humanitarian relief airlift to Somalia. The airlift was based in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa, and was successful in alleviating food shortages around some of the major Somali airports such as Baidoa. However, in situations of major famine, airlifts are invariably insufficient because of the cargo limitations of aircraft. It was clear that the only solution to the problem of mass starvation (5000 Somalis were dying per week as of October 1992) was massive delivery by ship and overland truck transport. This could only take place, however, with military protection of the shipments against the predatory warlords who controlled Mogadishu's seaport and airport.
In November 1992, after he had lost the election to Bill Clinton, President Bush asked the State Department for recommendations with respect to the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Somalia. The Department recommended that the United State propose a UN-led military enforcement operation to open the way for food deliveries, without the use of American troops, but with the logistical support of U.S. military airlift. The Pentagon expressed the view that it would take at least six months for the United Nations to mount such an operation, and only the United States military had the capability of moving quickly.
On the basis of these recommendations, President Bush ordered a U.S.-led military operation to stop the starvation, provided that (1) the Security Council agreed, (2) there were troops of other countries to accompany U.S. forces, and (3) the United Nations take over the relief operation within six months. With all of these agreements in place, the first American forces arrived in Somalia in early December 1992. A number of other countries also sent troops to Somalia, including Botswana and Nigeria in Africa. In terms of ending the hunger cycle, the operation was a huge success. Within a matter of weeks, relief supplies were flowing smoothly, and the number of deaths from starvation and malnutrition had declined tremendously.
The American-led relief operation was turned over to United Nations control in May 1993, as originally planned. U.S. forces were reduced to 2,500 troops serving in a reserve capacity. Boutros-Ghali appointed retired American Admiral Jonathan Howe to head up the entire operation. With relief supplies flowing and agriculture revived, the UN operation became one of working to restore governmental institutions and basic security.
This prospect became a threat to some of the warlords in the Mogadishu area who feared for their economic interests. One of them, Mohammed Aideed, decided to take action to force the United Nations out. This took the form of guerrilla attacks on UN peacekeepers. In September 1993, his men ambushed and killed 25 Pakistani UN peacekeeping troops.
As a loyal commander, Admiral Howe felt that he had to take action to punish the perpetrators of this atrocity. However, instead of working through UN channels to obtain authorization to use military force, he worked through U.S. channels to organize a raid by American ranger troops on Mohammed Aideed's compound. This operation resulted in the disaster of October 3, 1993 in which 18 U.S. troops and many hundreds of Somalis died.
As a result of the October 3 disaster, President Bill Clinton decided to pull all forces out of Somalia and to close down the UN operation, thereby fulfilling Mohammed Aideed's objective. In addition, President Clinton cast public blame on the United Nations for the deaths of American troops, when the United Nations had nothing to do with the operation. This led to a steady decline in support for the UN within the American public and the United States Congress.
Over the years, it has become conventional wisdom in the press, and even in academic circles, to describe the U.S. operation in Somalia a failure because of the tragic events of October 3 1993. However, this is not the case. President Bush's objective of bringing a halt to the massive starvation caused by the warlords' interference in food distribution was fully successful. The operation was turned over to UN control as planned. It was only after the official U.S. handover of control that the tragedy with U.S. combat troops took place. It was a tragic occurrence, but the success of the U.S. operation to stop starvation cannot be disputed. President Bush senior deserves credit for this success.
In 1993, once again, the United States Government thought it was saying goodbye to Somalia, hoping never to have to deal with that troubled, failed state again. But, alas for Somalia, the events of September 11, 2001 led to a search for Al-Qaeda terrorists and their bases of operation throughout the world.
It was known to American intelligence agencies that Osama Bin Laden had sent Islamic "missionaries" to Somalia from Sudan in 1991-1992. These missionaries organized a Somali welfare organization called "Al Itihad". In addition to traditional work to establish clinics and schools, Al Itihad also organized armed militias designed to attack enemies of the Islamic revolution as defined by Bin Laden. These militias, based near the confluence of the Somali, Kenyan and Ethiopian borders, made guerrilla attacks inside Ethiopia. The Ethiopian army, under Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, reacted strongly to these attacks, invading Somali towns to find and root out the Al Itihad fighters and administrative structures. By the mid-1990s, the Ethiopians had succeeded in doing significant damage to the Al Itihad organization.
Because of the history of Al Itihad, and its ties to Osama Bin Laden, the American government naturally looked at Somalia in its worldwide survey of Al-Qaeda operations. The fact that Somalia remained an anarchic state raised suspicions that Al-Qaeda was actually operating or hiding in Somalia, or that Al-Qaeda fighters escaping from Afghanistan might be trying to go to Somalia in order to regroup and continue the war against the United States from there. Hence, there is currently a great deal of attention being paid to Somalia as the possible "next target" in America's response to the attacks of September 11, 2001.
While still a country without a government, Somalia continues to struggle to survive and restore central authority. It therefore remains vulnerable to external manipulation and penetration, as was Afghanistan during the period of Taliban rule. It is to be hoped that despite their suffering, the Somali people will reject any efforts by Al-Qaeda forces to exploit their weaknesses and use Somalia as a base of operations against the United States and the west. At the same time, the United States government should finally understand that failed states, such as Somalia, cannot be ignored in a globalized world, in which both productive and destructive forces cannot be contained within national boundaries.
Herman J. Cohen is a former American diplomat, who retired in 1993 with the rank of career ambassador after serving as Assistant Secretary of State for Africa in the first Bush administration and Senior Director for Africa on President Reagan's National Security Council staff. He is currently president of Cohen and Woods International, a Virginia-based consulting and lobbying firm.
Copyright © 2002 allAfrica.com. All rights reserved.
The Christian Science Monitor. January 08, 2002 edition
Somalis wary of growing US scrutiny
The US-led coalition is building up forces off the Somali coast.
By Danna Harman | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
EL WAK, SOMALIA - In village after village in southwest Somalia, everyone points a finger in the same direction. Terrorists, they say, are in El Wak.
With its 100 tin shacks, a few dozen mud huts, two mosques, one goat market, and one well, El Wak is not an inviting place. The sun beats down as swirls of dust whip into the eyes, coating body and hair. Water is scarce, employment is almost nonexistent. There are no telephones or electricity, no roads, no shade trees, no schools, no health clinics. The ground is littered with broken flip flops, old batteries, plastic bags, animal carcasses. Marabou storks rummage through the garbage. Old men cluster around tape recorders and listen to cassettes of religious instruction, following along in tattered Korans. The few taxes collected last year will help build a third mosque.
But are there terrorists here? The locals protest, but the US-led coalition is building up military forces off the coast and increasing surveillance activities.
The US is looking at several areas in Somalia where it suspects there are terrorist training camps with links to Al Qaeda, according to intelligence sources. Some are around the capital, Mogadishu, one is near Laascaanood in the north, one is on the island of Ras Kamboni, and one is here.
British, French, and US military reconnaissance flights have become more frequent in recent days, with US Navy P-3 planes doubling their missions over the country to four or five a week.
The Pentagon will soon have three Marine Expeditionary Units (with 1,200 troops each) patrolling the Somali coastline, ensuring Al Qaeda members escaping Afghanistan cannot find shelter on these lawless shores. Germany sent a fleet of six ships to the Horn of Africa Wednesday.
The US is continuing discussions with the Somali Reconciliation and Restoration Council (SRRC), a loose grouping of warlords backed by Ethiopia who oppose the government in Mogadishu and have pledged to fight terrorism. Ethiopia reportedly sent 70 officers to Baidoa last week to train members of SRRC for fighting, though Addis Ababa denies it.
Here in El Wak, the locals spend hours every day huddled around transistor radios, listening to crackling newscasts from afar, and wondering if they are next on the US list. "We used to be very fond of America," says Adam Gedo, chairman of the El Wak elders council. "But now we are fearful.... We don't know what we have done," he says. "If we hear a plane, we cover our eyes and pray, because we think it is the US coming to bomb us."
In the early 1990s, Al Ittihad Al Islamiya - a fundamentalist group calling for unity through religion and the institution of Islamic law - was a growing force in Somalia, and particularly strong here in the Gedo region. After being expelled from the town of Luuq in northeast Gedo, it made El Wak into its regional headquarters, throwing out the elected town council and moving into the dilapidated police post.
According to Hussein Mohammad Dires, the police chief in Bula Hawa, a small village north of here, Al Ittihad also set up military training camps around El Wak, where the faithful were taken through their paces by "Arab foreigners" in preparation for a global Islamic jihad. Dires and other regional leaders say Al Qaeda supported Al Ittihad's activities, supplying weapons and cash, and that Osama bin Laden himself once visited.
"After Sept. 11th, all those terrorists have gone into hiding," says Dires. "They are pretending to be regular civilians. They are hiding their guns at home. But they are still there in El Wak, just waiting for their opportunity to regroup and start trouble."
El Wak leaders protest that Al Ittihad was expelled from their village more than two years ago by a coalition of local tribes and the Ethiopians. The organization has disbanded, the locals say. "Those days are gone" says District Commissioner Yussuf Haji Osman. "We did not welcome them then, we would not do so now."
El Wak would not harbor Al Qaeda members, says Mr. Osman. "If they came here from Afghanistan, we would know. They are not Africans, so we would notice. We have security men here. We would arrest them and hand them right over to the FBI."
"When we heard what happened with the twin towers on the radio, we were very, very sorry," emphasizes the local imam, Sheikh Ali Abdi Mohammad, an elderly gentleman with a red-tinted beard and a staff in his hand. "We like America very much, and we invite you to like us too. Anyway, Islam cannot allow for any killing. That is not what I preach."
The US is aware that it needs to be cautious about intelligence reports from the Ethiopians and warlords, says one US offical, especially given the complex regional politics. Yet, there are still reasons for concern, including the lack of security patrols or reliable law enforcement.
"We know there have been [Al Qaeda] training camps there, and that they have been active over the years, and that they ... go inactive when people get attentive to them," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said at a news conference last week. "They go in and out," he said.
Another Defense Department official told the Associated Press that Al Qaeda members, probably dozens, have in fact fled from Afghanistan to Somalia.
A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, says the department is satisfied the preventative measures in Somalia are sufficient for now, but the Defense Department is eager to take more proactive action against the suspected camps "very soon."
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher stressed Thursday that the administration has not decided what action, if any, it might take in Somalia. For the time being, he said, the US is simply "working to ensure that Somalia doesn't become a haven for terrorists."
"It is good to check before bombing," advises District Commissioner Osman. "Those who point at us as terrorists just want to harm us. We have done nothing. Please tell America there are good people in El Wak. We welcome you. We want you to uplift us. We do not want to be hurt."
Copyright © 2002 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.
The New York Times. January 6, 2002 (
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/06/international/africa/06SOMA.html)
TRACKING AL QAEDA
Somalia's Multitude of Factions Hinders Antiterror Efforts
By MARC LACEY
AIROBI, Kenya, Jan. 5 — One of Somalia's warlords says he sent an urgent letter to President Bush shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States telling him that there were terrorists in Somalia sympathetic to Osama bin Laden.
The warlord, Hussein Mohammed Aidid, advised Mr. Bush that Al Barakaat, the country's major money- transfer and telecommunications company, had ties to terrorists as well. He said he would be willing to help the United States in any way.
American officials said they did not remember receiving the communication. Even if they did, they said, they would not take advice from a warlord — especially one whose father, Mohammed Farah Aidid, was responsible for the killing of 18 United States Army troops in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, in 1993.
But the letter from Mr. Aidid illustrates one of the problems that the United States is facing as it scrutinizes Somalia for links to Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden's network. Clan rivalries are so bitter in this country that few claims by its multitude of leaders are reliable.
Since Mr. Aidid sent his letter, the United States has shuttered Al Barakaat for trafficking in terrorist money, and it has cited Al Itihaad, a militant religious group based in Somalia, as a terrorist organization with ties to Al Qaeda.
But pinning down the details of the country's terrorist ties has been difficult as factional groups scramble to position themselves to become the next Northern Alliance should the United States shift its military might from Afghanistan to Somalia.
The United States has acknowledged positioning ships in the waters off Somalia to prevent fleeing Al Qaeda fighters from taking advantage of the longest coastline in Africa. Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the commander of the allied operation in Afghanistan, said this week that surveillance flights off the coast of Somalia had been increased.
Warlords in Baidoa, a Somali town along the Ethiopian border, have reported that five American government agents visited them in mid- December to learn more about the presence of terrorists in the area..
Last week, a group of Somali faction leaders urged the United States to attack Islamic fundamentalists in the country. "There is no need for B- 52's and other bombers," said Gen. Aden Abdullahi Gabyow, chairman of the Somali Reconciliation and Reconstruction Council, an alliance of Ethiopia-backed leaders opposed to the Somali government. "Only an international ground force would be required."
President Abdiqassim Salad Hassan, leader of Somalia's interim government, has accused the warlords of trying to gain American backing by slinging irresponsible claims. He formed an antiterrorism task force in Mogadishu after Sept. 11. Last month, the authorities arrested 18 foreigners suspected of links with Al Qaeda. All of them have been released in recent days because no connections were found.
The United States does not recognize Mr. Hassan's government and American officials say they suspect that some people close to it may have connections to Al Itihaad. Officials in Ethiopia, a neighbor and rival of Somalia, have made similar claims.
In Puntland, a breakaway region in the north of the country, similar finger-pointing is occurring between the two men who both claim to be president there. Abdullahi Yusuf, who was elected by elders in 1998, has accused the man who challenges his leadership, Jama Ali Jama, of being an Islamic fundamentalist. Mr. Jama has urged the United States not to believe what it hears. He is innocent, he says, and reports of terrorist camps in Puntland are untrue. "The United States should not kill the poor people of Puntland for no apparent reason," he said recently.
In Somaliland, a breakaway region in the northwest, officials have been reaching out to the United States, as well, offering access to the country should the American military need a northern staging area.
The United States abandoned its embassy in Somalia in 1993 and began following developments there from across the border in Kenya. In the ensuing years, most of the country has been off-limits to American diplomats for security reasons.
Glenn S. Warren, the political officer who handles Somalia from the American Embassy in Nairobi, visited the capital just before Christmas on the first such trip since 1995. While there, he pointed no fingers but acknowledged that American officials were concerned about terrorists in the country. "I have not come to investigate centers belonging to Al Qaeda and I don't believe there are such centers in Mogadishu," he said. "However, it is possible that there are some individuals who have links with terrorists who are living in Somalia."
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
Militant Islam
The difficult future of holy struggle
The Economist print edition Jan 31st 2002
Islamist movements in the Arab world have been both helped and hampered by Osama bin Laden's war
IN 1967, Israel's rout of Arab armies stemmed the rise of pan-Arab nationalism. Will America's victory in Afghanistan quash militant Islam? Many Islamist radicals—jihadis, or disciples of holy struggle, as they style themselves—fear it may, and that Osama bin Laden's attack on America could jeopardise their efforts to overthrow “corrupt” and “heretical” Arab regimes.
Already, the radicals are torn by dissent. On one side stand the nationalists who have waged local or regional jihads, often with considerable savagery, against third-world regimes. On the other are the globalists, led by Mr bin Laden, who want to take on the world. At issue is not the aim—all jihadis believe that one day the whole world will be Muslim—but the timing. Mr bin Laden's mistake, says one North African who fought alongside him, was to declare war when the United States was at the peak of its power.
The quarrel dates back at least to 1987, when Mr bin Laden, then a young acolyte of the non-violent Muslim Brotherhood, revealed that he had a “vision” of an Islamic superstate. Muhammad had toppled the two great empires of the day, Persia and Byzantium. Mr bin Laden had helped to topple the Russians in Afghanistan, and now only America remained. He sought to rein in those fighting civil wars in the Arab world, saying that jihad should be waged solely against non-Muslims.
At first, the Egyptian, Algerian and Libyan radicals bitterly resented this. Their struggle, as they saw it, was against corrupt tyrants in the Arab world who were resisting the creation of Islamic states. For them, jihad was a necessary struggle of the weak against the evil and strong. But compromises were arranged. The leader of Egyptian Jihad, Ayman al-Zawahari, a shy Cairo doctor, joined Mr bin Laden's war on the West, and Mr bin Laden accepted the legitimacy of jihad against North Africa's rulers on the ground that they were all western stooges. The ideological partnership was sealed with the marriage of the daughter of Mr Zawahari's deputy, Muhammad Ataf, to Mr bin Laden's son.
As the global movement expanded its operations in Kashmir, Chechnya and Bosnia, dissenters held their tongues, or drifted away. No longer. Now it is the global jihadis who have slipped away—because they are dead, in hiding or muzzled in Cuban cages—and the local radicals are raising their voices again.
One such voice belongs to Mustafa Zayat, a lawyer whose shabby fifth-floor office in Cairo was for a decade the public face of jihad in Egypt. Mr Zayat was under constant threat: the lift to his office tampered with, the brakes cut in his car. He and his four lawyer-colleagues served jail terms in rotation. But Mr Zayat was always uneasy about Mr Zawahiri's partnership with Mr bin Laden, believing that it would make Arab regimes more repressive and alienate potential friends.
So it has turned out. The attack on the Twin Towers has both galvanised the West and given a green light to Arab regimes to repress their radicals by all means possible. “Those who carry out terrorist acts have no claims to human rights,” says Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, calling for a global crackdown on the Islamists who are his most effective opposition. At least 20,000 people are now detained in Egypt without trial.
Ever since the Iranian revolution in 1979, Middle Eastern police states have considered themselves as bulwarks against an Islamist tide. Western governments used to argue, though not very vehemently, that systematic repression and autocracy were also a cause of Islamist unrest. Not now. In the wake of September 11th, western countries, hitherto a haven for Arab Islamists, have acceded to demands from Arab governments to round up Islamist exiles. Across Europe, new laws have been introduced to intern foreigners. Nor is the crackdown restricted to militant groups. Insiders say at least 23 European leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest Islamist group professing non-violence, have been called in by the police and interrogated.
Arab regimes are gloating that the West is learning their language. The United States must construct its “own fight against terror on our model,” says Egypt's prime minister, Atif Obeid. On a visit to Syria in mid-January, American congressmen were treated to a lecture on how to fight terrorism from Bashar Assad, the president of a state which, according to America, sponsors terrorism itself. Syria's way of fighting terrorism was seen in 1982, when its tanks charged through the ancient city of Hama, the Muslim Brotherhood's heartland. Twenty years on, 25,000 Syrians are still missing and 100,000 are in exile. As a result, Syria would argue, it has saved itself from a militant Sunni uprising.
Even before September 11th, the American State Department had reined back its democracy programmes in the Arab world. Tunisia was implausibly characterised as a “stable democratic country” and America's promotion of Tunisian democracy was limited to money for training army officers. The Bush administration puts little or no pressure on Israel over its trampling of human rights in the occupied territories. At one time America defended al-Jazeera, the satellite television station that broadcasts across the Middle East from Qatar, from would-be muzzlers in Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Egypt. But during a visit to the White House last October the emir of Qatar was asked to stop it broadcasting Mr bin Laden's tapes.
Our son-of-a-bitch
In the minds of many Americans, the Islamist peril has filled the void left by the demise of communism. The rulers of Arab police states have become their allies. Even Libya's Colonel Qaddafi has had his pariah status waived. After a 15-year absence, Algeria's president has twice been feted at the White House in recent months. Algeria provided a list of 350 exiles allegedly linked to al-Qaeda. (Israel, Egypt and Libya have also provided such lists.) In return, the Bush administration is said to have eased restrictions on arms sales to Algeria to equip its security forces, despite the fact that 10,000 people disappeared during the country's brutal civil war.
In most cases, the suspects on the “terrorist lists” being given to America are waging local, not global, battles. But, for the moment, no Arab government will face penalties for increasing its repression. Nor will they have to contend with lectures from the West on the evils of summary tribunals or detention without trial. Britain and America, after all, are doing the same. Even hard-core human-rights activists fret about writing letters to save mainly Islamist prisoners of conscience.
Take the little-publicised case of a small Egyptian Islamist group, al-Waad (the Promise). Some of its members were caught collecting money for the Palestinian intifada, a jihad that even the government's Muslim leader, Sheikh al-Tantawi, says is legitimate. Eighty-three of them were put before a military court and charged with seeking to overthrow the president, a crime that carries the death penalty. In December, the police hauled 22 members of the Muslim Brotherhood before a military court at a remote desert compound.
As Arab governments use September 11th as an excuse to tighten their grip, similar round-ups have been organised in the Gulf, the Maghreb and the West. Less than a fortnight after the New York attack, Tunisia's ruling party declared that President Ben Ali would amend the constitution to let him serve a fourth five-year term; a Tunisian military court this week sentenced 34 Islamic militants to prison. American aid is already flowing to governments, like Egypt and Yemen, that keep their radicals quiet, and more will follow.
The enemy, or so they're told
Will the suppression work? Arab governments like to think that tough measures have crushed the menace already. The most recent attack on tourists in Egypt occurred five years ago. Life has returned to normal in the big cities of Algeria.
But the battle is far from over. Egypt and Saudi Arabia have not defeated jihad, but pushed it to the periphery of the Muslim world. Ousted from one country, jihadis have quickly resurfaced in another. Ejected from Pakistan at the end of the Afghan jihad in 1992, the mujahideen regrouped in Sudan and the West. Forced from Sudan in the mid-1990s, they dispersed to Yemen and back to Afghanistan.
Confronted with a global crackdown for the first time, the jihadi movement is likely to lie low for months. But silence does not mean defeat. The war in Afghanistan is not yet over. Mr bin Laden and some of his close consorts may have outwitted their American hunters, and his foot-soldiers have for the most part donned civilian clothes.
More important, for all the misgivings about his timing, Mr bin Laden has succeeded in recapturing the imagination of the Arab street. For years, observers had written off political Islam as a spent force without the know-how to run a state, or the organisation to mount an effective challenge. The ability to strike at the heart of America has confounded the doubters.
America, the enemy
For many Muslims, the Americans' pounding of Afghanistan and Iraq, and its insouciance about Israel's pounding of the Palestinians, have made it the principal enemy, the basic cause of the Arab world's ills. In prayer halls from Java to London, Muslims recite the Qunut, an additional raka'a, or prostration, added during times of calamity, accompanied by the words “May God destroy America.” Some radicals are returning from the West to their own countries. As new immigration rules and financial controls take hold, resentment is mounting.
The question for the jihadis is how to exploit their new-found appeal. Since its origins in the early 1970s, the current movement has been a clandestine assortment of cells. Unlike the Muslim Brotherhood, which sought publicity for its programme of reform, jihadis plotted in secret to launch coups d'état. Now they are reviewing their tactics.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack on New York, some jihadis envisaged a popular Islamic revolt on the Iranian model, possibly in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. Now they acknowledge they will need to plan for the longer term. They may take a leaf from the manual of Palestinian Islamic groups. These have not only won Arab plaudits for attacking the Israeli occupiers but have undermined Yasser Arafat for his attempts to be Israel's proxy policeman. They have thus raised the possibility of a militant Islamic alternative. Could the same policy—attacking colonial occupiers—be applied to America's military presence in the Muslim world?
There are precedents for success. Islamic groups dislodged American forces from Lebanon in 1982 and Somalia ten years later. Ten years on, many Muslims already subscribe to Mr bin Laden's analysis that the 5,000 American troops in Saudi Arabia and the 3,500 in Kuwait are occupying the holy land of the Arabian peninsula. In the coming months, that feeling will spread. From Bulgaria to Tajikistan, the United States is reported to be setting up 13 new military bases, with 60,000 troops, in nine Muslim countries. Preachers could pave the way by issuing fatwas declaring Americans “legitimate targets”, and jihadi exiles from the West could fan the flames just as they did when they returned home after winning the jihad against the Russians in Afganistan.
“The jihadi future has never been brighter”
For jihadi groups, the strategy has a twofold attraction. First, they will be fighting America on their home turf. Second, they will be shaking the Arab regimes which depend on American backing to stay in power. More repression will doubtless follow, but that too will help their cause. Arab regimes will be cast ever more as client states, while the United States will be tarnished for upholding them. And political Islam will gain a new generation of martyrs. “The jihadi future has never been brighter,” says a veteran observer.
“Violence is like virus,” adds Kamal Hilbawi, the former head of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe. “The more you bomb it, the more it spreads.” Since so many of its followers have been forced into exile, the jihadi ideology has been widely dispersed. Continued suppression has done the rest.
The jihadi movement continues to attract some of the Arab world's richest and most privileged. The hijackers who flew into the World Trade Centre were western-educated. Fifteen of them, out of 19, came from the Arab world's richest state, Saudi Arabia. Two of Gaza's suicide-bombers have been sons of millionaires. The vast majority of Arabs fighting with the Afghan mujahideen were graduates, and their leaders came from the Sunni aristocracy. Mr bin Laden belonged to the richest non-royal family in Saudi Arabia. Mr Zawahari was born to a landowning family. This is no peasants' revolt.
But if, as many jihadis claim, the Muslim street is boiling, it is hard to detect the agitation. The forecasts of mass demonstrations against America's bombing of Afghanistan never materialised. For almost a generation, the region's authoritarian rulers have defied predictions of their downfall. Syria, a secular republic, has already produced a dynasty. Iraq, Egypt and Libya threaten to do so. The Islamists, so far, have proved incapable of harnessing people's frustration. The Arab world, it seems, is still immune to popular change.
Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2002. All rights reserved.
Hope for a Changed Somalia
By Robert Macpherson
The Washington Post. February 6, 2002; Page A19
I traveled to Mogadishu for the first time in December 1992. Warlords were fighting their civil war by cutting off food supplies, and tens of thousands of people were starving to death. I was there with the U.S. Marines to subdue the warlords and make sure that the millions of dollars in aid reached its intended recipients. We quickly realized this would be a daunting task.
My time in Somalia is on my mind these days as the convergence of Hollywood and Pentagon attention has once again thrust this country into the media spotlight. During my tour, troops secured the airport, harbor and trucking routes for aid groups to deliver food and medicine safely. Thousands of lives were saved. I witnessed Americans die in Somalia, but when I left in April I felt our presence had made a difference. We had paid a price, but it was the right thing to do.
Then, in October 1993, the Black Hawks went down. I was angry and felt betrayed by the people my countrymen had saved.
I returned to Somalia in 1999, this time not as a U.S. Marine but as an aid worker. On arrival, I still wrestled with the same feelings of anger and betrayal. But as I watched the slow and agonizing rise of the Somali people from their deprivation and misery, I realized that they weren't the enemy. As in every place on this planet, Somalia has its heroes and its villains. And in 1993, a lot of people were caught up in the ruthlessness of the latter.
I have traveled to Somalia three times as an aid worker in support of CARE's education, health and food security programs. I balance my own views with the emotional and heartfelt thanks I receive from the many Somalis who know I came as a U.S. Marine in 1992. They are grateful for their children, who lived because we were there, for the medicine and food that saved their wives, husbands, fathers or mothers.
Obviously, not all is well in Somalia, as it remains one of the world's poorest countries. Thousands of women and children live in camps or on the streets, where they are mistreated and malnourished, particularly if they are of a rival clan or a minority group. One in five children die before reaching age 5, and 86 percent of children do not attend school.
But it appears that Somalia has hit bottom and is slowly on its way up. This is because its citizens, at last tiring of war, are taking responsibility for their lives. For instance, parents, tired of waiting for a government to educate their children, have opened their own schools, often at great personal expense and sacrifice. Private businesses, such as telephone, transport and financial companies, are defying the warlords to deliver goods and services. Irrigation canals and roads are being rehabilitated to support Somali agriculture and reduce reliance on outside aid. Food production has increased dramatically. Most important, significant local, regional and national attempts are being made at reconciliation and governance. The signs of hope are many.
Despite the signs of hope, Somalia is back in the daily news as a possible target in our war against terrorism. It is going to be tough to divorce our past involvement in Somalia from the new challenges that are bringing our attention back to this impoverished land. My modest hope is that as policy-makers work to hinder Somalia's villains, they also explore ways to bolster those quietly working for positive change. In Somalia and elsewhere, the everyday heroes are too many to overlook.
The writer is a retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel with 25 years of service, including Vietnam, Desert Storm and Somalia. He currently serves as director of the protection and security unit for the international aid organization CARE.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20011231/3736124s.htm
Somalis 'welcome' U.S. attack
By Thor Valdmanis
USA TODAY
MOGADISHU, Somalia -- For many people in this bombed-out capital, the United States can't bring its war on terrorism to their country soon enough.
''Tell Rumsfeld I'm happy the Americans are coming,'' says Sabri Mohammed, 16, referring to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Mohammed manages an electronics shop where cartons of Chinese stereos and Japanese televisions are stacked to the ceiling. He says he hopes U.S. forces can bring peace and stability to his country: ''We need a rest from the tribal fighting.''
Even local warlords, the men responsible for destroying a U.S.-led peacekeeping effort here eight years ago, say they want to see the United States attack terrorist sites in Somalia.
''Americans should not worry about something like 1993 happening again,'' says Mohammed Kanyare Afrah, a wealthy businessman who controls 4,000 fighters and large areas of the capital and countryside. ''We've had enough. We want to help'' in the war on terrorism.
That's the mood of many in Mogadishu. Known in happier times as the Pearl of Africa, this city is now a lawless, dangerous place that makes shattered Kabul, Afghanistan, look orderly in comparison.
Four warring factions claim control of the city. Their drug-addled militiamen patrol in pickups fitted with anti-aircraft guns. Firefights regularly erupt, fueled by half a million guns in a city of 2 million destitute people. Civil war has reduced most of the buildings to piles of rubble. There hasn't been an effective central government in Somalia since 1991. Dozens of warlords and local heavyweights have divided up the countryside.
Not surprisingly, this failed city and nation, with a labyrinth of feuding clans and subclans, have become a prime hideaway for terrorists. U.S. investigators say, and court testimony has shown, that Somalia was the launching pad for the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. The bombings are believed to have been orchestrated by Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist network.
Now the United States has to decide what to do about Somalia. Rumsfeld and other top Pentagon officials say there's been no firm decision on whether this place will be the next target for U.S. forces. But the ominous presence in recent weeks of several U.S. warships just off the coast in the Indian Ocean seems to be a clear signal that Somalia's turn could come soon.
Militant group
If targets are attacked in Somalia, likely to be hit first is a militant group called al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, or Islamic Unity. U.S. officials say the group has strong links to bin Laden and the embassy bombings.
Al-Itihaad was born out of an Islamic student movement at Mogadishu University in the late 1980s. After a series of humiliating military defeats over the past three years, al-Itihaad no longer controls any territory. It now works more subtly, recruiting at educational institutions and penetrating the judiciary and businesses, often with the financial support of Arab donors in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, U.S. officials say.
Members of Somalia's nascent Transitional National Government say there are no links between bin Laden and al-Itihaad. The TNG, formed in August 2000 at a conference in neighboring Djibouti, says al-Itihaad's leaders have fled to Saudi Arabia, Syria and the United Arab Emirates.
The warlords in northern and central Somalia say they, too, have no connections to al-Itihaad. They say the group gets assistance only from warlords in the south, who in turn get support from the government of neighboring Ethiopia.
The United States has been wary of Somalia since it ended its most recent mission there in the early 1990s. America led efforts to bring humanitarian aid here, and it sent troops to prevent food and medical shipments from being looted by the roaming gangs.
That relief effort ended after U.S. Army Rangers were attacked while on a raid in Mogadishu in October 1993. The fight left 18 commandos dead. But the Americans killed hundreds of their attackers and accomplished the goal of their raid: the capture of 19 supporters of warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid.
Memories of that experience -- dramatized in the movie Black Hawk Down -- are likely one reason U.S. planners aim to limit the extent of any military campaign in Somalia.
The United States is also under pressure from Arab leaders, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and some European allies. Those parties have expressed reservations about expanding the military campaign to Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Indonesia, the Philippines or other countries where international terrorists are thought to be operating. They worry about civilian casualties and stirring further unrest among militant Muslim groups.
Many Somalis, however, say they do hope that the Americans come here soon, take aggressive action and stay for a while to lend humanitarian aid and support. They warn that a quick attack and then withdrawal could just make conditions here worse -- creating an environment that produces more terrorists bent on attacking the West.
Critics of U.S. foreign policy say that's what happened in Afghanistan: In the 1980s, the United States poured weapons and aid into that country to fight the Soviet Union, but then lost interest after the Soviets withdrew in 1989.
Cash needed
''We need hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in aid, but the chances of getting that right now are zero'' because of the danger, says Abdurahman Ibrahim, a senior adviser to the TNG. But, he says, ''if the Americans supported us now, they would gain a valuable and loyal friend.''
What some Somali warlords and many citizens say they want is a copy of what's now happening in Afghanistan: military strikes that cripple terrorist cells, followed by humanitarian aid and assistance with forming a national government and reducing tensions between rival warlords.
The humanitarian need is urgent. The U.N. says 300,000 Somalis in the southern part of the country face starvation because of a drought that has produced the smallest crop harvest in seven years.
Bringing political order to Somalia also is crucial, people here say, but incredibly difficult. The TNG says it is trying to establish a broad-based, secular government, modeled on those in Egypt and Jordan. Peace talks aimed at brokering a power-sharing agreement among the TNG and various warlords who control different parts of the country were held in Kenya this month.
But the chances of success at any peace talks appear slim. Ethiopia, which has been at war with Somalia twice in the past four decades, has refused to allow the warlords it controls in the south to attend the conference.
The TNG and Kenya want the United States to play a more active role in Somalia's reconstruction while forcing Ethiopia to stop supporting Somali warlords. Kenya, meanwhile, fears more instability, guns and refugees spilling over its border from an unstable Somalia.
Somalis also want the Bush administration to agree to the lifting of an international freeze on assets of al-Barakaat, this country's largest bank. The United States suspects that al-Barakaat has helped finance al-Qaeda. But Somalis, whose average annual income is about $600, say they badly need the $250 million a year that overseas relatives send to family members here via al-Barakaat.
''What a mess. Can you imagine shutting down Citibank or MCI in the U.S.? Somalis have been cut off from the rest of the world,'' says al-Barakaat spokesman Khalif Farah, who left his job and family in Alexandria, Va., a month ago to advise the company.
Farah says al-Barakaat, whose majority owner is Sheik Ahmed Ali Jimale of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, denies any wrongdoing.
City of desperation
The extent of Somalia's problems is obvious.
In this city, most residents live in canvas tents sitting on empty lots or alongside garbage-strewn streets. Bodies of cats and dogs, most dead of starvation, litter the roads.
Signs of lawlessness are everywhere. Boys in their early teens cradle guns. Militia fighters wielding AK-47 rifles speed up and down the streets in SUVs. They seem to pay no heed to which side of the road they tear down. Many are glassy-eyed from chewing a local plant called khat, an amphetamine-like stimulant that counts as one of the country's few thriving exports. It's popular in Yemen and the Persian Gulf states.
At makeshift roadblocks throughout the city, armed bandits demand ''tolls.'' Local businessmen and government officials must hire small armies of gunmen for protection.
Last Friday, nine people were killed in fighting between police and militia here. Three were civilians caught in the crossfire. The firefight was sparked by a dispute over attempts by police to reorganize a market controlled by the militia.
''This is a very dangerous time,'' says Col. Ab Abdi Hassan Awale, Mogadishu's police chief. ''There is no law and order, there is civil war, there is tribe fighting. Now we may get bombed by the Americans.''
Rumors swirl in the streets that Delta Force and Green Beret commandos have conducted raids in southern Somalia. Last week, local media warned of an imminent U.S. invasion. Some residents have left the city in fear of airstrikes.
But most here say they hope for U.S. intervention. ''We welcome the Americans,'' says Hasam Abdi Ali, 45, a TNG soldier who has been fighting for one clan or another for 27 years. ''We need their help.''
There's one quantifiable measure of how certain Somalis are that an attack is coming: In markets, AK-47s are readily available.
When there's heavy fighting between warlords, the guns are in great demand and sell for as much as $350. But recently, the price was less than $250. Many people, sellers say, are convinced that U.S. troops will confiscate all weapons. So there's no point buying any right now.
''AK-47s are cheaper now, thanks to the Americans,'' says Mohammed Hasan Gafa, 30, a hotel clerk. But Gafa hasn't been lured into a false sense of security.
Like many Somali men his age, he owns an AK-47. He never goes out without it.
© Copyright 2002 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
The Christian Science Monitor. December 13, 2001 edition
'TOLL ROAD': A government tax collector counts cash from a truck driver, as soldiers help man a roadblock near Mogadishu and keep a wary eye on the surrounding hills.
SVEN TORFINN
A taxing time to rule Somalia
The year-old government is stumbling as US scrutiny of its role in terrorism compounds challenges.
By Mike Crawley | Special to The Christian Science Monitor
MOGADISHU, SOMALIA - Tax collectors are hardly welcomed with warm smiles in most countries. But here in Somalia, when the government's fledgling tax collection system goes to work, it's accompanied by some 150 armed men and a couple of pickups mounted with antiaircraft guns.
Ramshackle trucks, carrying everything from imported plastic sandals to slabs of meat, stop at the flimsy rope barrier on the dusty road from the port north of the capital. Their drivers visit the man with the rubber stamp and receipt book, sitting in the shade of a thorn tree. Somali shillings are exchanged for a stamped square of paper, while the armed contingent eyes the surrounding barren hills.
Through this low-tech method, the government has collected about 100 million shillings ($4,000) a day here since it began the process three months ago. It's a small amount, but the fact that a government of any sort is managing to collect any tax in this country, battered by 10 years of civil war, is a sign of progress.
"Before the government, there were a lot of checkpoints run by militia," says driver Abdullahi Hussein as he waits in a truck filled with stones for construction. "Wherever you'd go, they'd say: 'You have to pay 5,000, you have to pay 10,000.' " He says the government is providing a measure of security in exchange for the tax, while the old militia checkpoints were nothing more than extortion.
That was the kind of change promised by the Somali transitional national government (TNG), inaugurated with a flurry of hope a little over a year ago after a lengthy peace conference in neighboring Djibouti.
Some successes came quickly. The government reduced the number of rogue militiamen wandering Mogadishu's streets by remobilizing some 18,000 men into the police and Army. It persuaded a couple of former warlords to come onto their side. And there was even talk that the United Nations might re-establish a presence in Mogadishu, which it had fled for safety reasons.
But in recent months, setbacks have outnumbered the government's accomplishments. A no-confidence vote in October resulted in the dismissal of the cabinet. The country's biggest single economic sector - remittances from Somalis working overseas - suffered a blow when the US shut down the largest money-transfer company for allegedly funding Osama bin Laden. (US military officials met Sunday with the antigovernment Rahanwein Resistance Army, which recently reported activity by local Islamic groups linked to Al Qaeda, the wires reported.) The $120 million livestock industry was crippled after Gulf states banned imports from Somalia because of an outbreak of Rift Valley fever. Even the weather isn't cooperating: The most recent harvest is being described as Somalia's poorest in seven years, the result of a drought.
The initial surge of donations to the government from Arab states has shriveled, while Western donors remain unwilling to contribute, and recent militia attacks halted tax collection efforts in Bakara, Mogadishu's biggest market. As a result, the government is nearly broke. The police and army haven't been paid their $50 monthly salary in three months.
"Somalia needs the help of the international community," admits President Abdiqassim Salad Hassan.
His position is supported by Randolph Kent, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Somalia. Mr. Kent says that the international community does not need to impose a solution or pour millions of dollars into the country, but does need to support the progress that Somalis have made in re-establishing a semblance of order on their own.
"Until there's engagement, I think it's going to be difficult for progress to be made," says Kent.
A Western diplomat says a large part of the international community believes the government "can serve as a basis for national reconciliation."
"The TNG has survived longer than some people thought it would," he says. "It's got militia, it's established a framework for government, but that's where it ends."
Somalia's government lacks authority over two fundamental things that define a government: printing currency and controlling territory.
Businessmen arbitrarily order huge consignments of bank notes, flooding the market and causing huge inflation. While it cost 10,000 Somali shillings to buy a US dollar last December, this year it costs almost 25,000. Two months ago, big businesses simply stopped accepting the 500 shilling note, worth about 2 cents, prompting riots by small traders.
The government holds little territory beyond Mogadishu, and doesn't even control the whole capital, plagued by warlords who have refused to give up the gun. Indeed, key warlords opposed to the government said they would not take part in peace talks due to begin today in Nairobi, Kenya, the wires reported.
Half of the country is covered in the territory of Somaliland and Puntland, two breakaway regions with their own administrations.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan gave a blunt assessment of the government's strength in a recent report to the Security Council: "There is no single authority in the country that can assure security and unimpeded access to the United Nations, even in Mogadishu."
At a Koranic school, surrounded by shops selling car parts in Mogadishu, dozens of children study under Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Muhidiin, a religious leader who sports an embroidered cap and dark glasses.
"The government is making progress," says Sheikh Sharif. "The most important thing is to create security in Mogadishu. After that, we can do schooling, healthcare. But first it is the security."
TOM BROWN - STAFF
Copyright © 2002 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.
The New York Times. December 9, 2001
Somali Bantu, Trapped in Kenya, Seek a Home
By MARC LACEY
ADAAB, Kenya Dec. 4 — Abdullahi Ali Ahmed was born in Somalia and spent most of his life there. On a recent day as he crouched in the dirt in a sliver of shade in a refugee camp here full of Somalis, Mr. Ahmed declared just how little attachment he felt to the country.
"We don't feel like Somalis," said Mr. Ahmed, 27, who fled civil war in Somalia in 1992. "We were born in Somalia. We've lived in Somalia. But we've never been treated as though we belonged."
The 133,000 refugees crowded into three desolate camps here near the Kenya-Somalia border are living at the bottom of the barrel. Food rations are meager and conditions grim. But even here there is a pecking order, and Bantu like Mr. Ahmed are at the bottom.
The camp they now call home sits in some of Kenya's most inhospitable terrain, vast stretches of arid land where rainfall is a cause for celebration. Their dwellings are closely packed mud huts in which some refugees have lived now for a decade.
Historians trace the Somali Bantu back to a region farther south, along Africa's eastern edge to what is now Mozambique, Malawi and Tanzania.
Centuries ago, the Bantu were carried to Somalia by Arab slave traders, and the discrimination against them by Somalia's kaleidoscope of clans has continued.
Mr. Ahmed complained bitterly about how he was treated in Somalia as he awaited an interview here with officials from the United Nations refugee agency that might clear the way for his departure to the United States. As many as 10,000 others hope to make the same journey.
The Somali Bantu, also known as the Mushunguli, recount a host of abuses by their Somali compatriots. There were the slurs hurled against them by Somalis with more Arab lineage over their darker skin and African features. Their land and produce were frequently seized; the women and girls among them were often raped by militiamen.
Conditions grew even worse after 1991, when Somalia was divided up into a checkerboard of rival turfs upon the fall of its dictator, Muhammad Siad Barre. Many Somali Bantu, with no warlord to protect them, were caught up in the fighting.
Unfortunately, life did not improve markedly for those Bantu who slipped across the border into Kenya's northern fringe. In the refugee camps, the Bantu, a tiny minority in Somalia, faced the same indignities they had suffered back home in the Juba River Valley.
After searching for years for a country that would accept the group, the refugee agency has struck a deal under which they may be resettled in communities across the United States over the next two years.
Over the last decade, the United Nations has tried in vain to resettle the group of Somali Bantu to their ancestral land in what was once a vast area controlled by the sultan of Zanzibar, who was based on the semiautonomous island off the Tanzanian coast.
Tanzania decided against taking in the Bantu, saying it had its hands full with refugees from Rwanda and Burundi. Similarly, Mozambique bowed out even though officials there found that some older Bantu Somalis shared languages and tribal customs with those in the northern part of that country.
A decision by the United States in 1999 to declare the Bantu Somalis a persecuted group eligible for possible entry into the United States has not ended the Bantu's plight.
Resettlement is always a laborious exercise, and the Sept. 11 attacks have added additional scrutiny — and delay — to the process.
One complication for the Somali Bantu was a corruption scandal in the Nairobi office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Reports that some workers were selling refugee slots to the highest bidder prompted American officials to insist on additional reviews of those Bantu seeking asylum.
Then came the attacks on the United States, which put a two-month hold on resettlements around the world. Some refugee officials in Africa fear that the Bantu, who converted to Islam in recent generations, may be less welcome these days, especially with talk of Somalia possibly becoming a target of the American antiterrorism campaign.
Already, refugee experts say that one United States community, which they did not name, has expressed misgivings about taking in the Somali Bantu, after initial enthusiasm.
But the Bantu say they are not true Somalis and should not be penalized for the actions of Somalis who may be sympathizers of Osama bin Laden.
Meanwhile, registration of the Bantu is going forward, and refugee officials and advocates remain confident that the group will find a home. "I think people make a distinction between refugees and terrorists," said Mary Ann Wyrsch, a former official in the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service who is now the United Nations' deputy high commissioner for refugees.
The United States has not yet guaranteed any of the Somali Bantu admission. After the United Nations interviews, they will face queries by immigration officials, medical tests and background checks.
Despite all that, members of the group here have already begun dreaming of their new lives.
"It's going to be so different there," said Kamis Muhammad Alahal, 30, in the crowded camp where he lives with his wife and four children. "I won't be treated like a slave anymore. I'll be a modern man."
As it is, Mr. Alahal and other Bantu Somalis have become popular, for a change, among other Somalis. Some non-Bantu offer them cash to slip their names onto the list. Others seek to pass themselves off as relatives of Somali Bantu.
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information
Somalia's government and warlords
A patchwork of fiefs
Nov 1st 2001 | MOGADISHU
The Economist
Somalia's parliament has voted out the government. So what?
BEST known for having no government to speak of, Somalia lost what it had this week. On October 28th, the prime minister, Ali Khalif Galaid, lost a vote of no-confidence, which has given him and his 84-member cabinet a month's notice to step down.
His transitional government, which was elected last year at a conference of businessmen, academics and former officials, is recognised by the United Nations, but not by many Somalis. It controls half of Mogadishu and a short strip of coastline. Southern and central Somalia is a patchwork of fiefs. The north has broken away into two separate entities: Somaliland and Puntland.
The parliament which voted Mr Galaid out, by 141 votes to 29, meets in a former police-training college. Its old building is now in the possession of Hussein Mohamed Farah Aideed, a warlord who does not recognise the government, though he drives, with his artillery, unmolested through the capital's rubble-strewn streets.
Somalia's “opposition” consists mainly of similar gunmen, who are prepared to oppose the government but only if it dares step on their particular patch. Musa Sude Yalahow, a former driver who controls much of Mogadishu, says that a central government might be a good idea-so long as it recognised his sub-clan's ownership of the capital. Not far away is Muhammad Qanyare's turf. He joined the government-being minister of fisheries is handy for his fishing fleets-but is hardly more committed to it. He will allow the police into his area “if they can give me a good enough reason”. So far they have not.
The government set about soothing tribal rivalries by sharing cabinet posts between clans and sub-clans. But the result was that ministers owed allegiance not to the government but to the clan elders who nominated them. Mr Galaid then tried to rule dictatorially. But this did not work, either.
Most Somalis are fed up with tribal politics. Some speak nostalgically of the days of Siad Barre, the despot toppled in 1991. Many welcomed the new lot, even though the president, Abdiquassim Salad Hassan, was Mr Barre's interior minister. But the government has failed to unite the country against the warlords. Instead, it has tried to buy them off in various ways: 15,000 ex-militiamen are now paid as policemen.
This has cost the government most of its money, and it still dare not deploy the new policemen throughout Mogadishu for fear they will return to their former masters. The Arab League has promised $400m to rebuild Somalia, but not until order returns. Peace talks began in Kenya on November 1st, but without several key warlords or much optimism.
Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2002. All rights reserved.