Horribly close to a holy war

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. Soon afterwards, the American — let’s call him ‘Carter’ — appeared out of nowhere. 

Two US Navy warships bobbed on the horizon and we could hear fighter jets hunting for Islamic militants a few miles to the north. Carter said he worked for US Civil Affairs. He had the awkward manner of a stage actor who doesn’t know what to do with his hands. His skin was pallid beneath the equatorial sun and for hours he sat alone, watching children play among fish bones in the dust.