With too many weapons, too little food and three factions vying for control, Somalia's anarchy is overwhelming its new government even before it can establish itself. The competition for power, which threatens to trigger another civil war, could combine with a potential food crisis and repeat the disaster that followed the collapse of Somalia's last regime in 1991. U.S. forces under U.N. command went into the Horn of Africa nation to help the starving, and other nations joined them, but the U.N. failed to set up a viable government.Already, at least one al-Qaida cell is believed to have set itself up, and experts agree that another civil war could create an opportunity for Islamic extremists to take power. Homegrown fundamentalists have set up an Islamic court system, and militias move freely in some parts of Mogadishu, the capital, enforcing the court's rulings by shutting bars and destroying shops that sell pirated DVDs and music cassettes. The United States has long feared that Islamic militants may take advantage of the clan-fueled anarchy to replicate the Taliban's Afghanistan.
Heightened tensions in the capital come as poor rainfall, mass displacement of farmers due to fighting and extensive environmental destruction set the stage for widespread hunger. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization is calling for contingency planning for southern Somalia. "Civil insecurity and unrest continues to be one of the main factors contributing to food and livelihood insecurity throughout the region," the FAO's Food Security Analysis Unit said in its October report. Most Somalis already depend on handouts. Many live in wretched camps, their homes destroyed in clan fighting. The feared crop failure could increase their dependency on foreign food aid, already made tenuous by the instability.A year-old transitional government is meant to bring peace and the first central government in 14 years, but has split in two. The secular president and prime minister are based in the small town of Jowhar, while the warlords of Mogadishu, some of them also Cabinet ministers, have stopped cooperating until they get some concessions from the president. Forming a third force are fundamentalists who will settle for no less than an Islamic government, one of its leaders, Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, told The Associated Press in an interview this month. All three sides have received large shipments of arms — often from neighboring countries hoping to gain influence with Somalia's competing clans — setting the stage for renewed war, according to the U.N. Monitoring Group on Somalia. It has reported to the Security Council that there is a "severely elevated threat of widespread violence in central and southern Somalia."
Since none of the three factions is believed to have sufficient firepower to defeat the other, no one knows how long the stalemate might last. Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi's government, the product of the 14th peace process in 15 years, originally included all of the key warlords and received a great deal of international backing. "We are trying to calm the militias, but it is not an easy task to restore security and stability in the country," Gedi said in an interview in neighboring Kenya. He dismissed the schism within his Cabinet, pointing out that out of 42 members, only five were in Mogadishu and refusing to cooperate with him. "It is not as bad as people are saying," he said.
But it is bad enough to split the international community. Diplomats can't agree on whether to throw their full weight behind Gedi and President Abdulahi Yusuf, or wait and hope the Mogadishu warlords can be coaxed back into the peace process, officials familiar with ongoing discussions said. While the four key militia leaders in Mogadishu control the only city in the country and most of Somalia's economy, the only thing they seem to share is a hatred for Yusuf, and what they say are his dictatorial inclinations. While reconciliation efforts are under way, few hold out any hope of success.
Waiting in the wings are Somalia's fundamentalist Muslims, some of whom are listed by the U.S. State Department as al-Qaida collaborators. The most prominent is Aweys. While he won't address allegations he's had contacts with al-Qaida, he doesn't hide his opposition to Yusuf, his readiness to declare a jihad should foreign peacekeepers enter Somalia, or his plans to establish an Islamic government.