Somalia on Threshold of Danger, Opportunity Amid Terror War

At the Dayx livestock market here, 60- year-old Ali Omalia is performing an act seldom seen in this war-ravaged capital. He’s paying taxes, the equivalent of about 50 cents, on a camel he bought to slaughter.

In another era, Omalia might have been like any other grumbling taxpayer. But since this livestock market, protected by convoys of police armed with assault rifles, opened a few months ago, Omalia said, he has been safe from bandits who stole his animals and warlords who extorted hefty fees.

“What we’re paying to the government is small,” Omalia said. “We need law and order to get this country going again.”

Omalia and the other buyers and sellers of camels, goats and cattle here are part of a social experiment: how to rebuild a country that entirely collapsed. But Somalia, which had been quietly and painfully trying to refashion some semblance of government, now finds itself caught in the headlights of world attention after the terrorist attacks on the United States.

Experts says the events of Sept. 11 pose dangers as well as opportunities for this Horn of Africa nation.

A few weeks ago, President Bush froze the assets of Somalia’s largest remittance firm, Al Barakaat, saying it helped fund Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terror network. These allegations, and others that Somalia is a base for Al Qaeda, are helping foment speculation that it could be a future target for U.S. strikes.

Speaking to reporters in Nairobi on Friday, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walter Kansteiner confirmed that the United States is monitoring Somalia’s sea and air routes. The Bush administration, he said, is concerned that Somalia “could be a place where terrorist cells can find some comfortable environment.”

He said the administration has information that Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, a Somali group with links to Bin Laden, had representatives in the country’s transitional government.

Kansteiner acknowledged that the U.S. is paying more attention to Somalia and could help with its rebuilding efforts. The fact that Somalia has moved to the top of Washington’s watch list could aid efforts to end the country’s long political and humanitarian crisis, many experts say.

Somalia, the same experts warn, can no longer be left to its own devices, because it could become a haven for terrorists, crime syndicates and war criminals.

“If one of the consequences of Sept. 11 is that the world sees the danger of allowing a state to crumble away and collapse, then that will be a positive thing,” said David Stephen, a United Nations official in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, who monitors events in Somalia.

For now, Somalia remains a country under siege. United Nations officials warned in late November that its economy was in danger of collapse, partly because of the freeze on Al Barakaat’s assets. The $500 million a year in remittances that sustain millions of impoverished Somalis has been slashed by 50%, according to the U.N.

Somalia’s only Internet link to the outside world--partly owned by Al Barakaat--was switched off by business partners in the United Arab Emirates. AT&T; and British Telecom, Al Barakaat’s partners in another telephone venture, have cut off its international gateway.

Bin Laden Not Welcome, Leader Says

Abdiqassim Salad Hassan, president of Somalia’s transitional government, the first central authority in a decade, said that Bin Laden would not be welcome here and that poor Somalis would hand him over to the United States for the $25-million reward.

“I cannot be sure that there are no bases for Al Qaeda in Somalia,” Abdiqassim Salad said. “Even if there were one or two bases, we are able to deal with them and the Americans do not need to worry.”

Abdiqassim Salad’s confidants do not dispute that Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, or Islamic Unity, once operated terrorist training camps that probably produced some of the killers of U.S. servicemen here in 1993. But they say these bases have long been abandoned and Al-Itihaad has disbanded.

Somalia descended into what Mohammed Osman, a local historian, calls “an area below ground zero” after opposition leaders overthrew dictator Maj. Gen. Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

Warlords and factional leaders then battled one another for control of Somalia, tearing it apart. Thousands of Somalis died in war and famine. Thousands more were dispersed as refugees to Persian Gulf nations, Australia and the United States.

Many Americans have an enduring image of an Army Ranger being dragged through city streets by jubilant Somalis. A total of 42 U.S. troops were killed in Somalia before the Clinton administration ended its involvement in the United Nations’ peacekeeping mission.

Mogadishu today bears the scars of nearly 11 years of violence. The majority of buildings in the capital’s downtown, which overlooks the aqua blue Indian Ocean, are still piles of rubble. Many residents live in colorful canvas tents placed on empty lots or alongside garbage-strewn streets.

Almost everywhere, there are signs of lawlessness. Boys who look no older than 10 sling AK-47 assault rifles over their shoulders. Minivan taxis with no license plates drive on the wrong side of the road. Their drivers make frequent stops to pay tolls at makeshift roadblocks set up by armed gangs. Local businessmen and government officials are allowed through the roadblocks without paying because they travel with small convoys of militiamen armed with, among other things, antiaircraft weapons.

Fledgling Government Generates Hope

Many war-weary Somalis thought that their best hope to achieve some sense of order rested with the transitional government elected last year at a conference in neighboring Djibouti.

After returning to Mogadishu, Abdiqassim Salad’s government sought to restore calm to the city, recruiting a police force from thousands of militiamen. The government is using $14 million provided by Saudi Arabia and Qatar to pay the 15,000-member force.

But lacking other funds, the transitional government must try to collect taxes from small businessmen, including livestock traders. In many cases, the taxes are not enough to pay the collectors.

Officials with the United Nations, the European Union and neighboring African nations believe that the best way to keep Somalia from becoming a terrorist outpost is to support the fledgling government.

These officials support efforts by Kenya to broker a reconciliation and power-sharing agreement between the transitional government and rival factions that control some parts of the country. If Somalia were stable, they argue, there would be no need for the outflow of refugees and guns that now floods neighboring countries.

Abdiqassim Salad recently suggested that the United States play a lead role in helping achieve peace in Somalia.

“If Somalia becomes a black hole, it would attract all sorts of international terrorists,” he said in a recent interview with American reporters. “If there is no good government that can control the whole country, then of course you are giving ground to not only terrorists but drug dealers and arms smugglers.”

Some analysts say the United States could wield significant leverage if it played a more active role in Somalia’s reconstruction and if it forced Ethiopia to stop sponsoring Somali warlords.

On Friday, Kansteiner said there are “some good, capable folks” in the transitional government, but the U.S. wants them “to isolate the ones we are worried about, then force them out.”

Somalis had hoped that they could turn around the country themselves. But in its first year, the transitional government has failed to reconcile with the country’s rival factions or protect them from heavily armed bandits.

In October, the transitional parliament, which meets occasionally in the halls of an old police academy here, cited those reasons for dismissing Prime Minister Ali Khalifa Galaydh and his Cabinet. Somalia, a place with little government, was in effect left with none.

Before appointing a new prime minister in November, Abdiqassim Salad sought to demonstrate that his government possessed influence beyond Mogadishu. He traveled to Wanlaweyn, a village about 30 miles outside the capital.

“Welcome, welcome, welcome,” sang the crowd assembled in the ruins of a building destroyed by mortar fire. “This is a momentous day.”

The people of Wanlaweyn are known as the rain waiters. The area suffers from chronic drought that imperils their camel herds and maize and sorghum crops. Villagers expecting Abdiqassim Salad to spell out his latest plans for security and reconciliation would have left disappointed: He wanted to address rumors that Bin Laden and his loyalists were planning to seek refuge in this village where the houses are constructed of sticks and mud.

If villagers saw Bin Laden or his followers, Abdiqassim Salad said, they should report them immediately. Some villagers said they would heed the president’s plea to be on the lookout for Bin Laden.

“If he comes, we will definitely capture him,” said 28-year-old Ibrahim Hassan, a camel herder. “We could use the money.”