Relief and Trepidation Mix in Somalia

Rolling along the sandy, yellow road from the seaport to a city that has been called the most dangerous place on Earth, the most telling sign of change is a candy-striped boom gate lying askew and half-torn from the ground.

Up until a few weeks ago, you approached a place like this with fear. Or you hired a pickup truck bristling with automatic weapons and skinny young warriors, their torsos draped with belts of ammunition like pythons coiled around sapling trees.

But the roadblocks have been abandoned, and the militias that ran them have departed, at least for now. A murky alliance of Islamic militias has taken control of Mogadishu from the warlords who dominated Somalia’s capital for 15 years. Residents say the change in atmosphere on the streets is striking.

“There are no guns,” said Khadija Ossoble Ali, a PhD student in conflict resolution at George Mason University in Virginia who divides her time between her Somalian homeland and the U.S. She said no one had actually ordered people to stop carrying weapons. “People just did that themselves.”

Sheik Abdukadir Ali Omar of the Islamic Courts Union, the alliance whose militias drove out the warlords, said Friday that there were still many guns in Mogadishu, but that after 15 years without a functioning government, people now felt safe enough to walk the streets unarmed.

“Now they have confidence, they can move without guns. If they see there is security, there is no reason to carry guns,” Omar told foreign reporters who had been invited to the city by the Islamic militias.

The defeat of the warlords who ruled and quarreled over Mogadishu has also ushered in a seismic change in the nation’s political landscape, and for the first time in years, some Somalis nurture a fragile hope for peace. Omar said the Islamic Courts Union considered the establishment of peace, stability and security its primary goals.

Despite the palpable relief, some Somalis chafe at the restrictions imposed by the city’s new rulers and worry that a fundamentalist Islamic state may follow. Some members of the Islamic Courts Union have imposed punishments such as cutting off convicted thieves’ hands or executing killers.

The rise of the ICU, a loose, clan-based alliance, has Western analysts puzzling over the divisions, power plays and rivalries within the group, and the potential for an extreme Taliban-style wing to emerge on top.

Under the warlords, Mogadishu was sliced into small fiefdoms divided by roadblocks just streets apart. The smallest imagined affront to Kalashnikov-toting teenagers, who had known neither peace nor a government, often led to deadly standoffs.

“Many people died by mistake, by misunderstandings and problems at roadblocks,” said Abdulkadir Mohammed Nur, chairman of the Benadir Maritime Port Operation, a private beachfront facility an hour’s drive north of Mogadishu.

Several businessmen said they supported the ICU and counted the benefits of the warlords’ defeat in the piles of Somalian shillings that once went to pay a “tax” of about $50 per truck at every roadblock. Now the ancient, battered trucks that sit around the port like weary soldiers can ply the roads all the way to neighboring Kenya without being stopped.

ICU militias have taken control of much of southern Somalia and several key towns to the north.

The streets of Mogadishu have been shattered by years of war, decorated with the rusty metal lace of bullet-riddled signs and shipping containers. A dull layer of dust clings to everything, and shredded plastic bags are tangled on any stick or shrub, fluttering like ribbons in the wind.

On Friday, driving along roads lined with dense prickly pear into the once-stylish boulevards of the city, the atmosphere seemed relaxed, almost festive.

Women moved about gracefully in their traditional full-length garments, swaying like bright hibiscus flowers in a neglected garden. But a few have begun donning black Islamic full-body coverings, with only slits for their eyes.

At Friday prayers at the Kilometer Four mosque, considered one of the most hard-line, Sheik Hassan Awil protested a decision several days ago by Somalia’s weakened transitional government -- based in Baidoa to the northwest -- to call for foreign peacekeepers, and urged the faithful to take to the streets in a mass protest being organized by the ICU.

“We shall never give in to the infidels and their stooges,” he said, calling on followers to “fight the enemies of Allah.”

“We will sacrifice our souls for our religion. For the sake of our religion, we will die,” he said.

But even the noisy rally of several thousand protesters organized by the ICU was peaceful and free of guns, with only a small contingent of armed guards to usher the foreign journalists to the stage and then back to their cars.

Women, most of them with their faces covered, stood on one side, with men on the other, waving their arms and shouting, “No foreign troops!” and “God is great!”

“Democracy go to the hell,” a banner read in English. Another said, “America, open your ears and eyes.”

The Bush administration, concerned that Somalia could become a stronghold for Islamic militants, has allegedly backed the warlords in an effort to keep the Islamic Courts Union from taking the city. On Thursday, it convened an international “contact group” to seek ways to stabilize the country and disarm the Islamic militias.

Although Friday was the Muslim sabbath, work at the Benadir port continued under the broiling sun. Hundreds of sweating men, bent under sacks of rice, toiled up the beach unloading barges.

At the other end of the beach, tractors offloaded Chilean lumber, to be put on trucks and driven to Mogadishu.

Piracy at sea and extortion on the roads used to add hundreds of dollars to the cost of each load. Ships were hijacked and kept hostage until huge sums of money were paid.

Ahmed Moalim, 52, head of the heavy cargo section of the port, said piracy had reached the point of nine or 10 attacks a day. Just over a month ago, the port set up its own maritime security force of 150 small, heavily armed boats to escort ships in and out of the port.

He credited the rise of the Islamic Courts Union for a sharp decline in crime.

“Because of the courts, the pirates are now scared of being captured. We have our own army, and they heard the courts were becoming active and they know what the punishment is if they’re caught,” Moalim said.

“I’m prepared to catch them and kill them,” he added. Asked whether he was happy with the ICU, he replied, “One hundred percent.”

A short way up the coast, an oil tanker was unloading gasoline via a pipeline to trucks lined up along a sandy stretch of beach.

Sayid Ali Moalim, 30, a slight figure with a cellphone earpiece dangling from one ear, bought his first truck at age 15 and now owns 10.

He said that he ships 10,000 to 12,000 metric tons of gasoline a month but that the constant fighting in Mogadishu had made it impractical to build up a supply, out of fear it could be taken or lost in war.

According to local accounts, the battle for the city that resulted in the defeat of the warlords began with a conflict over control of the road from the port. One warlord tried to seize it but faced resistance from the ICU. The resulting confrontation led to battle.

“They took down the roadblocks and now the trucks can travel freely,” Moalim said. “We can get all the way to the Kenyan border.”

In the past, the number of roadblocks on the 350-mile trip to Kenya was “unimaginable,” he said, with a stop every six miles or so.

“Now our profits are high and the prices will go down. The people will benefit,” he said.

The poor have their own reasons for supporting the ICU. For Roble Hassan, 14, shining the shoes of militiamen employed by the warlords was a terrifying ordeal.

“Once when I asked for the money, a gunman shot me in the leg. Once they raped my cousin. Now they’ve gone away, so we are happy to live with the system of the Islamic courts. We want everybody who comes to restore security,” he said.

In the warlord era, getting up at dawn to trade tea on the streets was a frightening prospect for Halima Yusfu, 32, a single mother.

“I feel the security now, because I get up early and sometimes the militias used to rob me. But now I don’t see them around the streets.”

But one young man, Yusuf Mohammed, 22, said security and peace had come at a price. Ten days ago his area was taken over by an ICU militia that imposed Islamic law, or Sharia, and closed down the open-air cinemas, preventing people from watching the World Cup soccer games.

“The Islamic court already banned cinemas. They interfered with our haircuts. They interfered with our style of dressing, and we feel as if we are under unwanted pressure,” he said. “Now we feel peace, but it’s peace without freedom.”

Times special correspondent Abukar Albadri contributed to this report.

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Back story

Somalia, a fractured country of 9 million people, has not had a government since 1991. In 1992, the United States intervened during a famine to protect aid deliveries amid clan warfare. The next year, a botched raid made famous by the book and movie “Black Hawk Down” led to the deaths of 18 Army Rangers and the end of the direct U.S. effort there. Last week, militants of the Islamic Courts Union drove out an alliance of warlords that had ruled Mogadishu, the capital, since 1991. Informal talks are underway between the ICU and Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi’s transitional government, which is based in Baidoa, lacking the force or support to rule from Mogadishu.

Los Angeles Times