Pat Dollard | Young Americans

The killings in Mogadishu, Somalia’s bloodstained capital, are not going away. Nearly every day, the city endures street battles, roadside bombs, showers of bullets.

This is not how it was supposed to be.

Eight months after the U.N.-backed government supported by troops from neighboring Ethiopia rolled into Mogadishu promising peace, the deadly Islamic insurgency is gaining momentum in a region seen as a key battleground in the war on terror.

“We stayed here in Mogadishu through all this fighting because we thought things would calm down if the government became powerful,” Asho Abdi Nor told The Associated Press this week as she fled the city with her family. “But now the Islamists are promising to redouble their attacks, and we will be the victims.”

Somalia has been ravaged by violence and anarchy since warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, then turned on each other. The current government was formed in 2004, but has struggled to assert any real control.

A radical Islamic group with ties to al-Qaida ruled the capital and much of southern Somalia for six months last year, until they were driven out in December when Ethiopia—the region’s military powerhouse—sent in troops. Remnants of the group have launched an insurgency, vowing to realize their dream of ruling Somalia according to the Quran.

“A martyr like me should devote his precious life by defending Islam,” an insurgent fighter, Abu Khalid, told the AP.

Human Rights Watch has accused all sides in the conflict of war crimes, saying the battles target hospitals and other medical facilities. The fighting has decimated the capital, already one of the most violent and gun-infested cities in the world. Thousands of civilians have been killed since December, and a fifth of Mogadishu’s 2 million residents have fled.

Earlier this month, two prominent Somali journalists were assassinated, one outside his office and the other as he returned from his fallen colleague’s funeral. The motives are unknown in a city teeming with people desperate for power.

Somalia’s government spokesman acknowledges that violence has increased in recent weeks, but said it’s only because “the terrorists are now using their last gasp to survive.”

“What is happening now is a security operation, and it will continue until security is fully restored,” he said. But the government has announced before that it has crushed the insurgency, only to watch it rise again.

A National Reconciliation Conference—which also has been the target of insurgents—has been going on since July, but organizers have announced no major breakthroughs. Much of the stalemate is due to clan allegiances—there are dozens of clan factions in the capital, each making demands on the government and each a potential spoiler.

Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf’s Darood clan has little or no presence in the capital, leaving him with no local allies. The majority of Mogadishu residents are from a rival clan, the Hawiye, which is itself riven with factions whose warlords in the past divided up the capital among themselves.

The Islamic group, meanwhile, has not even joined the meeting and most of its leaders are in hiding.

“Powerful sub-clans are totally alienated from the governance of the country, and have allied themselves with the Islamists in order to undermine stability and take down the transitional authority,” said John Prendergast, a senior adviser with the International Crisis Group, which monitors conflict zones.

The United States has repeatedly accused the Islamic group of harboring international terrorists linked to al-Qaida and allegedly responsible for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. America is concerned that Somalia could be a breeding ground for terror, particularly after the Islamists gained power briefly last year and Osama bin Laden declared his support for them.

The U.S. sent a small number of special operations troops with the Ethiopian forces that drove the Islamic forces into hiding. In January, U.S. warplanes carried out at least two airstrikes in an attempt to kill suspected al-Qaida members, Pentagon officials have said.

Other than the airstrikes in January, the U.S. has avoided overt military action in Somalia since it led a U.N. force that intervened in the 1990s in an effort to fight famine. The mission led to clashes between U.N. forces and Somali warlords, including a battle chronicled in the book and movie “Black Hawk Down” that killed 18 U.S. soldiers.

Besides the seemingly endless violence in Somalia, the country struggles with hunger and disease. Life expectancy at birth is 46 years; a quarter of children die before they reach 5. In many areas, malnutrition rates are 20 percent or above.

“We civilians are in pain from every direction,” said Abdi Kafi, a Somali peace activist. “We are the poorest of the poor in society, we fear for our children. How painful that is.”

AP

___