Terror in Mogadishu

On a recent drive in downtown Mogadishu with ten heavily armed bodyguards, I passed the site of the old US embassy, and observed a melancholy scene that Britain and the USA might ponder if they decide to bale out of Iraq early. The embassy has been totally demolished, either out of hatred or because Mogadishu’s benighted inhabitants need bricks with which to build their hovels. The site is now a forest of thorns browsed by camels. Washington has long regarded Somalia as nothing but a nasty backwater populated by ungrateful Africans, but the continuing violence there — much of it directed by Islamic extremists — suggests that the country may become the springboard for an Africa-wide Islamic jihad.

When the Somali government fell in 1991 and civil war broke out, US navy helicopters were diverted from the Gulf to pull out the American diplomats. One Somali who witnessed the evacuation was a friend of mine, Abdulkadir Yahya, who worked at the embassy.