Somalia the basket case

There has been more violence this week in Somalia involving Islamic militas.

Fierce fighting in the Somali capital subsided on Wednesday after dozens were killed in 72 hours of pitched battles between Islamic militiamen and gunmen loyal to a United States-backed warlord alliance.

With militia members observing a tentative truce called late on Tuesday, which the warlords have yet to formally endorse, a tense calm returned to Mogadishu's streets, but nervous residents said they feared new violence.

At least 40 people were killed and nearly 200 wounded in clashes that began on Sunday after an alleged assassination attempt on an alliance commander in the city's northern Sisi neighbourhood that became the epicentre of the battle.

Sisi had been rocked by heavy machine-gun, artillery, mortar and grenade fire for three days until the Islamic courts, which control the militia, declared a unilateral truce in response to appeals from elders for an end to the fighting.

But yeah, it's the fault of the United States. (A tongue-in-cheek comment, I might add.)

In recent months, Mogadishu, Somalia has become a deadly battleground between militias loyal to Islamic courts and a newly formed anti-terror coalition that is believed to have the support of the United States. The violence is renewing anti-American sentiment in the Somali capital. Man looks at remains of American Embassy in Mogadishu, which was destroyed after US troops left Mogadishu, in 1995 Last Thursday, a reporter asked a spokesman for the State Department, Sean McCormack, if the United States was funding and supporting a coalition of Mogadishu-based factional leaders who recently formed a group called the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism.

"We are working with individual members of the transitional government to try to create a better situation in Somalia," he answered. "Our other operating principle is to work with responsible individuals and certainly members of the transitional government in fighting terror."

McCormack provided no details. But Somalis say that answer was enough to confirm their suspicions that, as part of its global war on terror, the United States is giving active support to some of the most powerful factional leaders and their business allies in the Somali capital.

At least four ministers in Somalia's transitional government are factional leaders, who are members of the new anti-terror alliance. The group refuses to say whether it is receiving American help. But its members say they have the same objective as the United States, namely to curb the growing influence of Islamic extremism in Somalia and to keep potential terrorists from establishing a safe haven there.