News, commentary, views from the ground and adventure from around the world with ABC News Senior Foreign Correspondent Jim Sciutto
BOSSASO, Somalia
Somalia is one of the most dangerous countries in the world and the prison in Bossaso is one of the most dangerous places in Somalia. Surrounded by high concrete walls topped with barbed wire the jail holds 400 of the country's highest-security prisoners, including 240 pirates and several dozen al-Shabaab terrorists. Inside I felt like I was entering one of the inner circles of hell. The prisoners are kept in two cramped cell blocks with a cement courtyard in between. It was break time when we arrived and several hundred of them were killing time. A few kicking a soccer ball, two others having a fist fight, the rest stopping and staring at us. Several did not want to be filmed, one wearing a long beard threw dirt and rocks at us, another told my producer Angus Hines that he wanted to kill him.In the warden's simple office we arranged to meet face to face with a pirate and a terrorist. 31-year-old Ibrahim Noura was first - he said he was captured by French navy ships in deep waters 30 miles off the Somali coast, right in the middle of the main shipping lanes, pirate country.He claimed to be fishing but the warden said his boat was filled with the jewels of the pirate trade - machine guns, RPGs, long metal ladders for boarding ships.At first he insisted he was innocent, before he dropped his guard. When I asked if pirate attacks were justified, he said, "they are our only justice, our seas are being fished out by foreign fishermen, we have no choice."He was clearly proud of the pirate skills, when I asked how pirates in tiny skiffs managed to attack giant cargo ships, he said, "we are men of the sea, we know how to sail even in the most dangerous waters."Noura is facing trial - if convicted, he could get the death penalty, but he looked surprisingly sanguine. I couldn't survive a day in this prison, he seems settled in his fate. That, in many ways, was humbling to me.Next we met a man arrested for being a member of Al-Shabaab. He was captured running weapons from Yemen to Mogadishu. Like many terrorists I have met in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Middle East, he exuded cockiness, confidence, giving off a look of studying you. He told me he was 39 but was clearly much younger, he was playing with me.When I asked my first question, he answered before it was translated. I knew he spoke English, one more of the things which distinguished some of the terrorists I have interviewed.Like his fellow inmate he also claimed innocence, but when asked what al-Shabaab was fighting for, he let his guard down as well. "Al-Shabaab is fighting for sharia law. We are Muslims. Somalia is a Muslim country. We should follow sharia law." When I asked why so many Somalians were joining al-Shabaab he said, "because they need, they want something to fight for."Several members of al-Shabaab are American or have lived in America. One of the most senior leaders, Omar Hammami, now known as al Amriki (the American), was born and raised in Alabama, the child of a Syrian Muslim father and an American Christian mother. Earlier on our trip, in the capital of Puntland state, Garowe, we met another al-Shabaab fighter. He had been arrested for transporting explosives from Bossaso to Garowe. The shipment included women's clothing - the long colorful chadors favored by Somalis that police said were intended to be used as disguises for suicide bombers. He spoke English as well, with the same familiar cocky demeanor. "Why should I believe you are a journalist?" he asked me. He demanded to see our press cards. I tried to hold it up far enough away from him so he couldn't see my name. He could get information out of the prison by cellphones or through visiting family or friends. I didn't want him to know too much about me.The government is clearly fighting back, assigning a private security firm to train its own counter terror force. And the Puntland intelligence agency, the PIA is working with U.S. intelligence officials. Everywhere we drove in Puntland, military checkpoints stopped traffic every few miles. Still, the government feels outmatched. When I asked the prison warden in Bossoso what he feared most, he said it was a prison break. "I worry that fellow fighters will storm the prison to free them. I am not sure we would win," he said.
That's something many Somalis feel.
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