Aidan Hartley Aidan Hartley

Horribly close to a holy war

US policy has driven Somalia into the arms of extremists

issue 27 January 2007

Kiunga, on the Kenya–Somali border 

He was a quiet American, and an oddity in Kiunga. For 20 hours I had rammed the Range Rover through tsetse fly-infested jungles teeming with buffalo. When earlier this month I limped into this Indian Ocean village, within earshot of US air strikes against Islamists across the frontier in Somalia, astonished Swahili fishermen said mine was the first vehicle to arrive for three months.

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