In Somalia, a Boot Camp for Islam

Beginning as a teenager, militiaman Abduallahi Mohammed Nur rarely ventured into the Mogadishu streets without an AK-47, which he often used to harass civilians and extort money at checkpoints.

But the 27-year-old hasn’t held his weapon since June, when it was pointed at invading fighters with the Islamic Courts Union. The militia, now known as the Conservative Council of Islamic Courts, drove away the warlord he worked for and confiscated his gun.

Now Nur calls himself a reformed man. Under the watchful eye of Islamist commanders, Nur says he prays five times a day, studies the Koran and is learning to defend Somalia against foreign threats.

“Most of all,” he said, “they are teaching me how to be good to other people.”

Nur is one of about 3,000 former warlord militiamen sent to Islamist-run “rehabilitation camps” on the outskirts of the nation’s capital. It’s an ambitious resocialization program designed to wean the young fighters off drugs, instill religious values and, eventually, reverse loyalties so they can be integrated into the Muslim fundamentalist forces.

“It’s a difficult job,” said Mohammed Ibrahim Bilal, chairman of one of the new Islamic courts in Mogadishu. “We want to welcome them back. But they have been living with violence for 16 years.”

In Washington, there is concern that increasingly Islamist Somalia could end up with a Taliban-style government and serve as a terrorist training area.

Amid allegations that Islamists are using military advisors from Pakistan and Afghanistan to train soldiers, officials recently began permitting journalists to visit the camps. But they denied access to weapons stockpiles and insisted on selecting the militiamen to be interviewed, and carefully monitored what they said.

About 12 miles north of the capital is the largest of the camps, called Hilwayne, which was a national army base before the collapse of Mohamed Siad Barre’s regime in 1991. After that, rival warlords carved up the Horn of Africa country and largely held sway until an alliance of local religious courts seized control of Mogadishu in June.

The Islamist forces that took the barren compound have cleared the trash, built tin barracks and a makeshift mosque, and use the facility to stockpile weapons and retrain about 700 defeated militiamen.

On a recent afternoon, the mood was largely casual and relaxed, with former fighters milling around in the shade. Security and the atmosphere appeared more reminiscent of that of a drug rehab facility or a tough-love teen reform school rather than a Soviet- or Cambodian-style reeducation camp.

Guarded by a few armed Islamist soldiers, the men start their day with prayers at 4:30 a.m. Attendance is voluntary, camp leaders say, but they take note of those who don’t show up. Smoking cigarettes or chewing khat leaves, a stimulant, are banned, a challenge considering most fighters were addicted to khat.

The rest of the day is filled with military exercises, religious lectures and self-defense classes, though the fighters don’t practice with real weapons.

“Our goal is to upgrade their morals,” said Abudulkhadir Yusuf Osman, a frequent guest lecturer at the camp and an Islamic studies professor at a Mogadishu university.

This week, during a lecture to several hundred former militiamen under the shade of a thorny tree, Osman preached that the young men could be rich in morals even if their pockets were empty. He also urged the fighters to think about their “next life,” and promised paradise to those who lived a life of piety.

Religion permeates the program. Guards kneel and pray with rifles slung over their shoulders. Trainees chant Islamic verse to keep time while marching in unison across dusty plains.

“Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar,” the men shouted during a recent military exercise. The phrase, which means “God is great,” is a foundation of Islamic prayer.

Islamist leaders, however, insisted that religious indoctrination was not their goal.

“We are rehabilitating their behavior, not their religion,” said Sheik Mukhtar Robow Ali, the deputy security chief for the courts. “Most of them were already religious, but they weren’t using their faith. Religion doesn’t permit you to oppress other people, and that’s what these people were doing.”

Camp leaders say participation is voluntary and the men are free to leave. But they acknowledge that the camps provide a good opportunity to keep an eye on the former enemy fighters.

After Islamists chased out nearly a dozen warlords who had carved up control of Mogadishu, fighters left behind were given the option of handing in their weapons and returning home, or moving to the camps to be retrained.

In the face of pressure to prove they are “reformed,” about half of the fighters agreed to go to the camps. Most were young, unemployed men who had been acting as mercenaries. Few had any education or job training that would enable them to find work.

During a recent pep talk to the former militiamen, most of them 18 to 30 years old, Robow Ali promised that the Islamic courts would take care of their needs.

“The youth are the cornerstone of every country in the world,” he said. “You are the youth of Somalia, and we urge you to join us.”

To sweeten the deal, the Islamists promised to continue paying the men’s salaries. After some delays, militiamen in the camps received about $100 each last month. Islamists said the money came from taxes at the recently reopened airport and sea port, though critics allege that funding is coming from Middle East countries and Eritrea.

The task of transforming the fighters falls to former Somalian Army Col. Muhyadin Haji Ali, a husky, smiling man who always sports a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses, even indoors. New recruits arrive every week, he said, including fighters who initially fled the city in fear, and defectors from forces controlled by Somalia’s transitional government, based in Baidoa.

To become good Muslim soldiers, Haji Ali said, the former militiamen require heavy training. “The only thing they learned from the warlords was how to kill and loot,” he said.

After spending nearly three months at the camp, Nur, a former bodyguard for Mogadishu warlord Muse Sudi Yalahow, said he had been taught to be ashamed of his past actions. He recalled times when he was ordered to shoot or fire mortars at unarmed civilians.

“We couldn’t disobey, but I knew what we were doing was wrong,” he said. “I knew the warlords were abusing the people. They destroyed the country.”

A second former militiaman, also selected by camp leaders to be interviewed, said he defected in July from the transitional government, which is seeking to negotiate a power-sharing arrangement with the Islamic courts. Tensions have been high between the Islamists and the transitional government over which side is best suited to lead Somalia.

“I came here to fight for my religion,” said Abdul Aziz Adan Mohammed, 25, a former government soldier based in Baidoa. “I’m here to fight Ethiopia.”

Nationalism and anti-Ethiopian rhetoric are common themes of the retraining program.

A long-standing rivalry has been reignited by Ethiopia’s support and influence over Somalia’s fragile transitional government in Baidoa.

Islamists in Mogadishu say that if Ethiopian troops enter Somalia, either at the invitation of the Baidoa administration or as part of an international peacekeeping force, they will invade Ethiopia.

“Do you want Ethiopia in your country?” Robow Ali shouted at the fighters during his pep talk.

“No!” the men screamed back.

“Will you defend your country and your religion?”

“Yes!”

“Will you die for your country?”

“Yes!”

Islamist leaders said the rehabilitation program was already a success. But they said none of the former militia fighters had graduated from the program or been integrated into their forces.

“We haven’t given them their guns back,” Robow Ali said. “Their spirits are good, and I would trust them now with my own children. Our fight was never with them. It was between us and the warlords. Just as they have trusted us by giving us their weapons, we will trust them.”

When will the Islamists feel confident enough to rearm the men?

“I don’t know,” Robow Ali said. “We’ll see.”

edmund.sanders@latimes.com