The guns of Mogadishu are seldom silent. Since Somalia's last functioning government fell in , the sound of militiamen clearing their weapons by firing into the air has become as common as the muezzin's call to prayer. This year, however, the bullets' trajectories have been horizontal rather than vertical.
More than people - mostly civilians, including women and children - have been killed during battles than have raged across the city. More than have died during the past week alone. Militiamen have taken over the hospital run by the Red Cross. The fledgling government is stuck in Baidoa, a town to the east of the capital, powerless to intervene. It is the sort of scenario that normally acts like a magnet for foreign correspondents. Jet into the city, interview a few combatants, nip into the hospital to see a few wounded civilians, and you have a colourful piece ready to run alongside a picture of teen brandishing an AK In this story, there is even the added spice of clandestine CIA involvement and ties to al-Qaida and the "war on terror".
Yet the number of western journalists that have been in Mogadishu this year could be counted on one hand - and that may be an overstatement. It is not due to a lack of interest from editors, but rather an accurate assessment of the risks for a foreigner in a city that is as unpredictable as it is inherently dangerous. A BBC producer, Kate Peyton, was shot outside her hotel in Mogadishu in an apparently motiveless murder in early Instead, it is left to a brave few Somali journalists working for the wire services to chronicle the mayhem.
Given the paucity of independent on-the-ground analysis - humanitarian workers and African analysts have been as prudent as foreign journalists in avoiding the city - it should be of no surprise that various theories, conspiracy or otherwise, emerged as to why the fighting broke out.
The most prominent of these is the clandestine involvement of the United States a subject covered by Simon Tisdall in a recent World Briefing. Rumours have circulated for many months that the CIA was cooperating with warlords in southern Somalia. Agents handed over briefcases full of dollars, the theory went, and warlords handed over al-Qaida operatives. What is known is that in February a group of warlords including four government ministers formed an coalition called Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism; a move that immediately sparked battles with militia allied to the Islamic courts.
