By dawn the Islamists were gone

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By dawn the Islamists were gone

Jan 4th 2007 | NAIROBI
>From The Economist print edition
After a stunning victory over its Islamist enemies, the government has
to act quickly if the country is not to slip back into its usual civil
strife
EPA

ETHIOPIAN military jets flew low over the hot, blue-black waters of Ras
Kamboni on January 1st. They were looking for retreating Somali
Islamist fighters. Anywhere between 500 and 1,000 hardliners, including
foreign fighters and possibly al-Qaeda operatives, had abandoned their
defence of Kismayo, a fishing town 150km (93 miles) up the Somali coast
from the Kenyan border. Ras Kamboni, a thickly forested tropical island
near the border, was a known training camp for the Islamists.

The retreat from Kismayo the day before had been sudden. Locals said
the fighters had abandoned the front-line after nightfall and "melted
into the darkness". By dawn, they were gone. Islamist field
commanders had promised to defend the town against the combined
advancing forces of the Somali transitional government and Ethiopia,
its main backer. Despite having been almost driven into the sea by 12
days of bludgeoning one-sided engagements, the Islamists promised to
turn Kismayo into an Ethiopian cemetery.

In reality the landmines, trenches and press-ganged boy fighters were
used only to buy time for the most committed Islamists to slip away.
They seem to have gone in several directions, some towards Ras Kamboni,
others into the salty mangrove swamps or the trackless malaria-infested
bush along the Juba river. Ethiopian tanks, which had torn through the
Islamist front-lines in the flatlands of central Somalia, could not
follow them. The military commander of the Islamists, Sheikh Hassan
Dahir Aweys, may have travelled to Mecca for the haj (morbidly, some
thought, given that he might well be killed before the next
pilgrimage). America's Fifth Fleet is patrolling the coast between
Mogadishu and Ras Kamboni to prevent Islamists escaping, and special
forces may have been landed to track them through the swamps.

Kenya has tightened security at its border crossings, though that means
little on such a porous border, populated by ethnic Somalis on the
Kenyan side. The Kenyans did make a few arrests of fleeing combatants,
apparently including a commander from an Ethiopian separatist group and
an Eritrean army colonel, each carrying wodges of cash. Ethiopian
military helicopters flew low over the hills, but their limited range
made it difficult to flush out the Islamists. Their intelligence was
also faulty; one helicopter accidentally strafed a Kenyan border post.

It has been an extraordinary fortnight in Somalia. From being holed up
in Baidoa, surrounded by Islamist forces, the internationally backed
transitional government has achieved an astonishingly quick victory
over its foes, albeit with Ethiopian tanks, planes and artillery.
Having roared of a holy war on Ethiopia in October, the Islamists were
shown to be a paper tiger.

With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the hardliners
over-reached themselves, making some serious miscalculations. The first
was to make a deal with Eritrea, the local pariah state, for arms and
military trainers-some of the arms coming from third parties in the
Middle East. That caused Ethiopia, Eritrea's greatest enemy, to step up
its support for the weak Somali transitional government in Baidoa.
Ethiopia has one of Africa's biggest armies, and, more importantly, an
air force that proved to be highly effective in the brief campaign.
Eritrean and other Arab meddling was also a factor in tacit American
support for the Ethiopian intervention.

The second and more serious miscalculation of the hardliners was to
dismiss a deal that moderate Islamists were close to making with the
transitional government: many moderates thus refused to fight. The
third mistake was to attack the transitional government and Ethiopian
positions in front of Baidoa on December 19th. That gave Ethiopia the
pretext it needed for a full-blooded assault on the Islamists. Their
fighters were literally shredded on the battlefield. The bulk of the
Islamists retreated to Mogadishu. Street-to-street fighting seemed
inevitable when Ethiopia strafed its airport on December 25th. But the
Islamists left soon after, saying they wanted to spare the city.

The prime minister of the transitional government, Mohamed Gedi, now
wants to capture or kill the fleeing hardliners "at any cost".
Although the Islamist collapse was quicker than expected, the danger is
that this convincing conventional victory for the Ethiopians may be
followed by an Islamist insurgency, drawing in support from militant
Muslims around the world. Indeed, it would be hard to find a better
recruiting poster for would-be jihadists than the Russian-built tanks
of "Christian" Ethiopia bogged down in a Muslim tropical paradise.
In a Taliban-like phone call from the bush, an Islamist commander
promised that the movement would "rise from the ashes".

It may well. Already there have been several unexplained bomb blasts in
Mogadishu, one of them directed at a hotel where Ethiopian army
officers are billeted. Two Ethiopian soldiers were shot dead on January
2nd, probably by Islamists. There is a real possibility that what army
types call "asymmetrical warfare" will include suicide-bombings, in
Kenya as well as in Somalia and Ethiopia. One aim would be to stir up
hatred between Christians and Muslims in the region. Among the key
commanders now on the run is Aden Hashi Farah Ayro. His network has
grown in the last months to perhaps 200 fighters. Mr Ayro is young,
around 30, and is thought to have trained in al-Qaeda camps in
Afghanistan. He is wanted for his suspected involvement in the killings
of several foreigners in Somalia and Somaliland. He is one of those in
charge of the sleeper-cells that are likely to have stayed in Mogadishu
and elsewhere, waiting to strike.

Ethiopia claims to have killed 3,000 Islamists and wounded a further
5,000. The International Red Cross put the number of wounded at 850,
with several hundred dead. The routing of Islamists on the battlefield
by secular-minded Somalis backed by Ethiopia is certainly a major
embarrassment for al-Qaeda: when faced with a chance to be a martyr in
a jihad, nearly all Somalis shied away. But as in Iraq, everything
depends on what comes next.
The dangers of returning to normal

The early signs are not promising. For a start, the warlords are back
in town. The single greatest achievement of the Islamic courts was to
provide a reasonably peaceful alternative to the chieftains who ruled
Mogadishu and other towns, greedily and often demonically, following
the collapse of the Siad Barre regime in 1991, the last time that
Somalia had anything resembling a normal government. This is the main
reason why the Islamists were able to gather the popular support that
they did. Although the Islamists were austere, they delivered security,
orderliness and even a sense of pride to many in Mogadishu. Where the
warlords had roadblocks, the Islamists had street-cleaners.

The outside world's focus on the hardliners and their possible links
with al-Qaeda often missed the influence of the moderates, particularly
the large traditionalist Sufi organisations. They are among the biggest
educators in a largely illiterate country, helping run Mogadishu
University, where many of the classes are taught in English. The
nominal leader of the Islamists, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, was himself once
a school geography teacher.

By contrast, feelings about the warlords are unequivocal. "They are
absolute bastards," says one Somali watcher, "illiterate,
syphilitic, irrational killers." Some are a little better than
others, and several hold ministerial positions in the transitional
government, but for the most part they remain motivated solely by
money, including what they can make from moving arms and qat, the
addictive narcotic leaf on which many Somalis waste their meagre daily
salaries. If the transitional government does not stand up to
warlordism quickly-and there are few signs that it will-it might be
that Mogadishu's few months under "terrorist" Islamist rule will
come to be viewed as a golden moment.

The return of the warlords may also presage a return to the clan
violence that ruined Somalia. To avert this, Mr Gedi has called for
three months of martial law in Mogadishu, presumably to be enforced by
Ethiopian troops. But his insistence on voluntary disarmament looks
optimistic. Most of Somali politics takes place at the sub-clan level,
opaque to all but a few insiders, but the broad outlines are clear. The
Islamic courts gained their initial support from the Hawiye clan, which
controls Mogadishu. Hawiye elders feel under-represented in the
transitional government. Mr Gedi is a Hawiye, but despised by his
kinsmen. Any national reconciliation has to involve the Hawiye, so that
may mean removing Mr Gedi from office, something that the transitional
government and its backers oppose.
AP Mr Gedi-with Ethiopian transport

The presence of the Ethiopians gives Somalia a chance to rebuild, but
it is a big problem too. Ethiopia deserves credit for the efficiency of
its military campaign, which was partly conducted out of self-defence;
its victories have eased the threat of an Islamist advance into
Ethiopia and across the rest of the Horn. Even so, Somalis object to
Ethiopians on their soil in much the same way that Irish citizens might
object to a British military advance on Dublin, the more so since the
Ethiopians are taken by many Somalis to be doing the bidding of
America. A temporary stability guaranteed by the presence of Ethiopian
troops offers no prospect of a lasting solution to the country's
problems.

For all its careful presentation, Ethiopia's involvement could already
have fatally undermined the transitional government. At the very least
it looks bad for Somali ministers to be ferried around in Ethiopian
military helicopters, and to be receiving instructions from the
Ethiopian foreign minister. Ethiopia's prime minister, Meles Zenawi, is
adamant that his troops will be out of Somalia within weeks. But the
timing of such a withdrawal has assumed critical importance. A hasty
exit could precipitate clan fighting in Mogadishu. A lengthy stay will
give cause to an Islamist insurgency-and provide the insurgents with
targets.

For now, Mr Zenawi will press home his advantage. Slaughtering
Islamists in the mangroves may earn Ethiopia the enmity of global
jihadists, but it will win the widely unpopular Mr Zenawi much-needed
political support at home and cash from a grateful America.
Putting the country back together again

But killing the hardline Islamists will not make Somalia any more
peaceful. Only a few of those on the run are proper terrorists. Some
could return to play a useful role in a government of national
unity-perhaps the best chance of preventing Somalia from slipping
back into its customary civil strife. Mr Ahmed, a Hawiye, has useful
connections with clerics, clan elders and the young. He might be an
asset to a government of national unity, even if, in the first flush of
victory, the transitional government might not see the need for that
kind of concession. It will also be important to bring in the
businessmen who backed the Islamists in return for protection from
warlord militias.

A few weeks ago an international peacekeeping force seemed an
unnecessary provocation. Now it looks like an imperative; it will take
months for the transitional government to raise a proper national army
to replace the Ethiopians. An intense diplomatic effort is under way in
Nairobi and elsewhere to put a force on the ground within weeks. A
UN-mandated force drawn from Muslim countries (Indonesia and Malaysia
are popular choices among Somalis) could allow Ethiopian troops to
leave gracefully. An African Union force may be less effective, given
its seeming bias towards Ethiopia, where the organisation has its
headquarters. The question is whether such a force can be deployed
before clan fighting and an Islamist insurgency take hold.

http://www.economist.com/world/africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8502191