Dilemmas of the Horn

The government nominally in power, fractious to begin with, is more fragile than ever. More than 60 government employees have resigned in the past year after receiving death threats—many of them broadcast live on Mogadishu's privately owned Radio Simba. An estimated 40 senior officials and intellectuals have been assassinated by insurgents in the past year and a half. A group of Shabaab fighters recently called up Mogadishu Mayor Mohammed Deerhe on his cell phone and threatened to kill him, too. (They recorded the exchange: "I'm sure you're not a Muslim," the caller taunts the mayor. "You're just talking, it's not in your heart." Deerhe shouts back: "F––– your mother!")

With a budget of less than $10 million, the government is essentially bankrupt. Somali troops haven't been paid in eight months. One soldier in Mogadishu, a gaunt, khat-chewing sergeant wearing camouflage and a pair of ragged sandals, says government forces are near collapse. "The insurgents right now are very strong," he says. "If the Ethiopians were not here with us, the insurgents would destroy us quicker." The soldier, asking not to be named for fear of retribution, says he no longer receives a salary—only pocket money when a fight is brewing.

Like America since the invasion of Iraq, Ethiopia is rethinking the wisdom of its incursion. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi spoke to NEWSWEEK last week about the possibility of a unilateral pullout. "It's not an option we will take lightly," he said. "But it is an option." Critics ask whether Washington was too blinded by its hunt for terrorists to foresee the likely pitfalls in Somalia. U.S. intelligence agencies believe fewer than a dozen high-value Qaeda targets are holed up there, including Haroun Fazul, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan and Issa Osman Issa—the men accused of helping to carry out the 1998 embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Since the invasion, at least one target, Abu Talha al-Sudani, has been killed in a missile strike. Others have been driven into hiding or out of the country, at least temporarily. But other strikes have misfired: on March 4, the United States targeted an Islamist militia leader named Hassan al-Turki. Six people were reported killed and 10 others injured, but the object of the attack was in another village near Kenya at the time. "In the short term [the strategy] may work for us," says Ken Menkhaus, a Somalia expert at Davidson College. "But in the long term it's sowing seeds of radicalism and anti-Americanism that we're going to deal with for generations to come."

Shabaab fighters say being targeted by America only helps their cause. "What we are sure about is that adding us to the [terrorist] list will bring many young people to us," the group's spokesman, Sheik Mukhtar Robow, said in a rare phone interview. "Al Qaeda became more powerful after it was added to the list. We hope that it will be the same with us." Robow claims that the guerrillas "had no official links with Al Qaeda before," but that now "we're looking to have an association with them."

That's probably just braggadocio. But there's no question that the insurgents are growing more radical. The Islamic Courts Union included several civilian leaders who might be described as moderates: the senior leadership, including a figure named Sheik Sharif, met with U.S. officials in Nairobi last week and disavowed any connection with al-Shabaab. They have advocated dialogue and emphasized that their fight is with the Ethiopian invading force, not all "infidels." Some of them are horrified by the tactics of their onetime allies in al-Shabaab. In towns that they've conquered the insurgents have opened the jails and killed local officials before melting away again. In Mogadishu, they've begun to target more moderate Islamic leaders. Sheik Mohammed Adham, a 48-year-old madrassa teacher, says the radicals assassinated one of his colleagues and closest friends last month. "These extremists, they're mad," he says, shaking. "I try to explain to the kids what good Islam is, but when they go home they hear someone has been killed, or shot, they see the bodies and they don't understand the value of life. I tell them good things and they go out and do bad things."

Abdul Rahim Ali Moudi, a spokesman for the civilian wing of the Courts, says Washington should have worked with their more moderate leaders earlier rather than tacitly greenlighting the Ethiopian invasion. "It would have been better if the Americans had listened to the Islamic Courts. But the problem is America hears only with one ear," he says. That may be starting to change. Somalia's current prime minister, Nur Hassan Hussein, has opened the door to talks with "any Somali," regardless of background. (He's also blasted his own security forces as "looters" preying upon the populace.) The United Nations has appointed a new, optimistic special representative for Somalia who is aggressively working to bring both sides to the same table. "We have to have a solution," says Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah. "I'm going to organize it in the next few weeks or days." Last week Ould-Abdallah met in Nairobi with representatives of the Courts' moderate wing.

The State Department is backing such efforts, and embassy officials in Nairobi met with Courts moderates last week. "We remain committed to resolving the ongoing political and humanitarian crises in Somalia," says Greg Garland, a State Department spokesman. There's one problem: the jihadists may have their own plans.

With Jason McLure in Addis Ababa

© 2008