Soon afterwards, the Shabaab, which has pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda, was
driven out by Ugandan soldiers fighting with an African Union army financed
and trained by America and Britain. Losing territory and with support ebbing
away, the once-fearsome militia, Africa's version of the Taliban, is now
faced with defeat.
Somalis now hope that after more than 20 years of bloody anarchy, they may
finally be at the beginning of a new dawn, and Western leaders including
David Cameron have signalled a major new effort to help them recover.
Aid agencies are planning to move in from next-door Kenya, and British
officers in uniform have arrived in Mogadishu's fortified airport complex,
ready help their new Somali allies with security. The CIA are already there,
along with camera-shy private security advisors, and the occasional frontier
businessman looking for potential opportunities.
But before the west starts another nation-building experiment, the Shabaab
must be finished off.
Reaching Afgoye, the scene of their most recent defeat, meant joining an
armoured African Union convoy with a tank escort on the main road, where
only last month, Somalia's president survived an ambush.
Abandoned villages and buildings holed by explosions line the route of the
battle. Patrolling soldiers from Uganda and Burundi are still shot at every
day, but the ranks of Shabaab guerrillas left the bush have been
dramatically thinned by battle casualties and desertions.
"All the Shabaab fighters are thinking of escape now," said Absher
Ali Mohammed, 24, who until last Sunday was a Shabaab commander.
The Sunday Telegraph met him in an army camp in the bush outside Afgoye, where
he was assisting the Ugandans, his former sworn enemies, with valuable
intelligence on the Shebab, his old comrades in arms.
A slight, cheerful young man with a wispy beard, Mr Mohammed was one of
hundreds of fighters to change sides in recent months.
"Al-Shebab will be finished before the end of this year," he said. "Their
problem is that they were too brutal and they never won the support of the
people."
Mr Mohammed was one of the movement's rising stars until he calculated that it
was time to get out. As he discussed his former life, with the sound of
heavy machine-gun fire and mortars in the distance – what the Ugandans
described as "mopping up" - his mobile phone rang.
It was his old boss, Sheikh Mustaph, a commander of 300 Shabaab fighters who
is notorious for ordering dozens of beheadings and amputations for
transgressions of the group's strict Islamic codes.
For five minutes the two appeared to chat like old friends. Then, when the
conversation was finished, Mr Mohammed calmly explained that Sheikh Mustaph
had just threatened to personally cut his head off.
"I told him he was on the losing side if he stays with Shebab," he
said with a grin.
His comrade Abdi Abdullahi, 45, deserted two months ago.
"Everyone is fed up with fighting," he said.
Before Shebab persuaded him to join them to defend Somalia and Islam from
foreigners, he had been a gun for hire, fighting for warlords.
"If the AU wasn't here we would go back to tribal warfare," he said.
He now wonders if he can live peacefully for the first time in his adult
life, and send his children to school.
It is a very different picture from a year ago, when the African Union forces
looked bogged down in a brutal street-by-street fight that had already cost
them hundreds of casualties since they launched an offensive in 2010. The
Burundians lost 53 men in one battle alone. Like American soldiers who
pulled out of Somalia in 1994 after their disastrous Operation Restore Hope
mission went badly wrong, or the Ethiopian soldiers who invaded in 2006 and
went home three traumatic years later, it looked as if the AU would fail to
tame Somalia's gunmen.
The ranks of the Islamic hardliners were swollen with 250 international
jihadists, many with experience of Iraq and Afghanistan, who were determined
to turn Somalia into a terrorist base. With the Olympics coming up, British
intelligence services are acutely aware of the risk of ethnic British
Somalis getting terrorism training.
Back by intelligence and training from the US and Britain, the Africans have
fought an effective campaign despite heavy casualties. They managed to push
the Shebab out of Mogadishu last year. Then, in a desperate attempt to rally
support abroad in February the militia's leaders announced a merger with
al-Qaeda.
It was a disastrous miscalculation. Many of their Somali supporters did not
want to be linked to foreigners, and key warlords split away from Shebab's
ranks.
Now they are retreating on all fronts, split by internal arguments, and short
of cash after losing cities where they levied taxes. Kenya's army has
invaded the south of Somalia to fight them, and America this week announced
$33 million worth of bounties for seven of the top leaders, a financial
inducement which may well be enough to make their own men turn them in.
With the Shebab gone from Mogadishu and the war shifted a few miles out into
the bush, the city's population is enjoying its longest period of relative
peace since the late 1980s, although life is still far from safe. There were
ten assassinations in four days last week, the mayhem actually increasing as
energised businessmen and politicians jockey for markets and power.
But streets and cafes that were empty a year ago are now busy, and planes full
of Somalis with bulging suitcases are returning daily.
Today, locals gather on the city's white sanded-beachfront to swim and play
volleyball, the only real danger they face being the sharks who lurk amid
the Indian Ocean breakers. Guesthouses are re-opening in antiicipation of an
influx of aid workers and businessmen. And while many of Mogadishu's elegant
Italianate colonial buildings have been wrecked beyond restoration, the hope
is that in a few years' time, the city may once again be restored to its
20th centruy glory days, when it was once of the most attractive ports in
East Africa.
Already, property prices are also going through the ceiling - land that was
worth $20,000 a year ago has jumped in price to $100,000 - and new
businesses are opening every day.
Whether the new Somalia succeeds or fails may well be decided in the next few
weeks as attempts are made to form a proper government. A new constitution
is being drawn up and a council of elders will select a new president and
prime minister by August.
If the international community feels confident enough, millions of dollars in
aid will pour in, with Britain leading the way. Spreading security across
Somalia is also acknowledged as the only real way to tackle the piracy gangs
that continue to operate along its vast coastline. Foreign navies have
admitted that catching pirates at sea will only have limited effect as long
as they still have safe havens on land.
The political challenges ahead, though, are as tough as the security ones.
Somalia's Transitional Federal Government is notoriously corrupt – the World
Bank this month announced that the TFG cannot account for $130 million in
aid money - and most of its politicians are reputedly ineffective, although
there are some good ones.
With so many problems, a ruined infrastructure, and a population traumatised
by years of war, it is going to be a tall order to turn Somalia into
anything like a normal place.
"I give it a 70/30 chance of success," said one international
consultant. "After so many years of war and chaos it will not be easy.
International help is desperately needed, if aid workers and the UN can be
persuaded to risk their safety and come in here.
"The goal will be modest though. If they manage to turn Somalia into a
normal corrupt African nation, that will be a massive improvement." One
indicator that there is confidence in the future is the return of thousands
of middle class Somalis who fled the war and violence.
Many are coming full of hope from the diaspora in Africa, North America and
Britain, although they are still very much aware of the dangers ahead.
"I wanted to come back to my country because you cannot be happy living
as an exile, and now the economy is very good," said Farhiye Ahmed, 32,
who returned from Ethiopia last year to start a clothes shop.
"Those who butcher people have gone but there is still danger in
Mogadishu," she said. "The mafias, criminals and warlords are
still in the city, and many of the Shebab are in hiding. We can see light at
the end of the tunnel. My only hope is that we can reach it."
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