A government under the cosh

The fragile government of Somalia is in deep trouble and, according to one of its officials, "scared witless". Hence its panicky call on June 20th for troops from neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia to come to its rescue or see the country fall into the hands of jihadist fighters linked to al-Qaeda. Hence, too, the reluctance of its diplomats to heed a call from their foreign ministry to return from abroad to Mogadishu, the capital, for "retraining". That was hardly surprising, since a teenage suicide-bomber had just blown up Somalia's ambassador-designate to South Africa, along with its interior minister.
Fighting in Mogadishu has again emptied the coastal city of many of its poorer inhabitants. A 4,300-strong force consisting mainly of Ugandans and Burundians under the African Union's aegis is unable to keep the peace. The government's own troops are ill-equipped and rarely paid.
By contrast, a commander of the jihadist group known as the Shabab (meaning "Youth") struck a cockier note, promising that foreign troops would be killed; Somali cats and dogs would eat them. "Somali young mujahideen," he said, "will fight any troops deployed here until our last holy fighter passes away." It is easy to see which side thinks it has the upper hand.
The Shabab's confidence and sense of direction has been boosted by an influx of foreign fighters. Aides of Somalia's embattled president, Sharif Ahmed, say there may be over 2,000 of them. Western intelligence sources think fewer. One of its bomb experts, Abu Mansour al-Amriki, appears to be a white American. Other al-Qaeda fighters have come from Pakistan and Afghanistan and may recently have helped assassinate Mogadishu's police chief as well as clan elders and local journalists. The group's slick internet propaganda echoes al-Qaeda. The Shabab says it has set up three units of suicide-bombers. At first they were mainly foreign but now they tend to be Somali boys educated in the movement's religious schools.
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