Ungoverned and ungovernable since 1991, Somalia is once again receiving the kind of attention it was burdened with a decade ago, when international peacekeepers tried unsuccessfully to bring order to the chaos-torn country.
The United States and the Arab League have redoubled their efforts to create a dialogue between the transitional government of Abdullahi Yusuf and the Islamic Courts, fundamentalist militia now in effective control of most of the country.
The African Union and the United Nations are sending experts to the region to gauge the feasibility of deploying peacekeepers to the country, where renewed fighting has taken more than 320 lives and displaced a further 17 000 people.
The Arab League convened a meeting in Khartoum this week hoping to bring together Yusuf’s transitional government and Islamic militias led by Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.
Uganda and Sudan have responded with an offer of troops. Before any deployment happens, however, they will need a working peace treaty to observe, and some money to cover the costs.
“Uganda has been ready to send troops to Somalia since last year, but conditions on the grounds are not suitable for peacekeeping,” Uganda’s defence spokesperson, Major Felix Kulayigye, said this week. “Since the warlords have not yet agreed to a ceasefire, there is no peace to keep.”
The US has been accused of backing the losing horse in the race: the secular warlords who held parts of Mogadishu and operated under a banner of the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter Terrorism.
Jendayi Frazer, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, is in the region, offering financial assistance to Ugandan peacekeepers and calling on the Islamic Courts to surrender terror suspects believed to be hiding in Somalia.
She named Haroon Fazul, Saleh Nabhan and Talha al-Sudani, who have been indicted for their alleged role in the bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and a terrorist attack on an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya.
“They are part of a core element of al-Qaeda and all of us need to work together to rule out these terrorists,” Frazer said. “And we need to work within the region to create a network to prevent East Africa becoming a haven for terrorists.”
American sources rejected allegations by the Islamic Courts earlier this week of an Ethiopian incursion into Somali territory in support of Yusuf. Islamic clerics in Somalia claimed several hundred Ethiopian troops had crossed into Somalia at the weekend and were moving towards Baidoa.
“We’ve seen the reports of Ethiopian troop movements on the border,” said US State Department spokesperson Adam Ereli. “We’ve talked to the Ethiopian government about it. We’ve seen no evidence of incursions.”
Humanitarian workers are making the most of the relative calm in the capital now that the Islamists hold sway, by renewing assistance to the injured and displaced.
Ahmed rejects accusations that the Islamic Courts have any contact with al-Qaeda. While they intend to enforce Sharia law to restore order to Somalia, he says, they do not have a Taliban-type agenda like the extremists in Afghanistan.