Sprinting through the bombed out buildings in Somalia’s famine-stricken capital, gunmen chase a man suspected of belonging to Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab rebels. “That one! No, the other man!” the commander shouts, as his heavily armed troops charge down the pot-holed street, AK-47 automatic rifles levelled at the suspect.
In a dangerous city ravaged by war between rival factions for two decades — this section was wrested from Shebab fighters by a pro-government militia called Ahlu Sunna Waljama two months ago — nobody seems to trust each other. Curious children peer out over a broken balcony, and women scurry back into narrow alleyways as screaming gunmen surround the suspect. “Bring him here!” the commander shouts, standing at his base, a ruined building with sandbags piled in smashed windows for machine gun emplacements, a ragged Somali flag fluttering outside in the warm sea breeze.
This time it is a case of mistaken identity, and the man is released, shaken but unharmed.
Shebab forces withdrew from Mogadishu positions earlier this month after years of battles, but African Union troops have warned the rebels are preparing terrorist or guerrilla style attacks.
“We are protecting our people,” said Abullahi Moalim, a commander in Ahlu Sunna — meaning “the majority” — who oppose the hardline Islamist Shebab, following instead Somalia’s traditional moderate Sufi version of Islam.
“We drove the Shebab out of this area,” Moalim added, speaking with a thick American accent — he grew up in Kansas, before returning to his birth nation to fight in the Ahlu Sunna.
This area, the Hodan district, was one of the hardest fought over areas in the war-racked capital, a former Shebab stronghold adjoining a key road connecting the airport and presidential palace, held by AU-backed forces.
Both sides smashed holes between buildings to allow easier movement out of sight of sniper fire, while Shebab fighters dug extensive tunnel networks under the roads, with hidden holes they used to pop up as surprise firing points.
