The Next U.S. Target?

Collecting tax is a dangerous game in Somalia. Since the government in Mogadishu introduced business levies in September, bandits have attacked city officials, and fighting between police and militiamen loyal to a local warlord has stopped tax collection in the capital’s main market.

"It’s not easy," concedes deputy finance officer Abdi Salan Noor. "But we need the money to improve things, to pay the salary for the police. If people refuse, we put them in jail just like that." A rusting truck carrying building rocks rumbles to a checkpoint stop behind him, and Hussein Mahmoud leans out of the driver’s window. "I’m happy to pay," he says, handing over the equivalent of 20¢. "It’s sort of a help for the government." Besides, he adds, he has just paid twice as much to militiamen at a roadblock up the street.

Turning anarchy into order is no easy task. The Somali government, formed at a peace conference in neighboring Djibouti last year, is slowly establishing a few basics of a functioning society. And now the struggling government faces an external threat: since Sept. 11, Somalia stands accused of aiding terrorism and has been talked of as the target of a future American attack. "It hurts us all because for six years the international community was not prepared to help," President Abdiqasim Salad Hassan told Time. "And now that we want to have peace and stability, they say we should be next after Afghanistan."

The U.S. claims that a Somali group called al-Itihaad al-Islamiya (Unity of Islam) has links with Osama bin Laden. It also believes that al-Qaeda fighters helped in the 1993 killings of 18 American servicemen in Mogadishu and that Somalia subsequently hosted terrorist training camps. But the Somali government and many Somali observers reject the allegations, insisting that al-Itihaad ceased to be a coherent group after its defeat by Ethiopian forces in 1996. Former al-Itihaad members opened schools and health clinics, but they are "no longer a threat," says Ibrahim Sheik Mohammed, a member of parliament who nonetheless still employs a bodyguard three years after al-Itihaad issued a fatwa against him. The President also rejects the existence of al-Itihaad: "We invite the Americans to come and investigate. And just suppose that there is a camp here or there, we are saying that as a government we will deal with it. Why do the Americans want to lose their boys in Somalia again?"

Three weeks ago the U.S. froze the assets of al-Barakaat, a money-transfer company used by thousands in the Somali diaspora to send cash to relatives back home. The U.S. says it has evidence that Barakaat funneled millions of dollars to al-Qaeda. But Barakaat denies any link and eagerly shows visitors computer printouts of money transfers mainly for just $50 or $100. Remittances are the single largest sector of Somalia’s economy, and the freeze is pinching budgets throughout the country. "We know 100%, we are not guilty," says Barakaat spokesman Mahmoud Mohammed. "We just pray, God, make the Americans understand that we are not terrorists."

The government is also keen to cooperate. When a Saudi national showed up in Mogadishu in October claiming to be a businessman and tourist — "This is neither the time nor the climate for tourism in Somalia," says President Abdiqasim — he was held for nearly three weeks. The intelligence chief at Somalia’s Central Intelligence Department, Mohammed Osman, says the man was carrying a list of names and addresses, some of which he believes belong to former al-Itihaad members, "mostly because they wear the long beard like the Arabs."

The President says his police informed U.S. and Saudi officials about the man, and in late October three Saudi officials arrived to escort him home. "From that day on we haven’t heard any more," says Osman, who complains that he wasn’t able to finish his investigation.

Despite their country’s 3,000-km-long coastline and its vast, nomad-inhabited plains, most Somalis say bin Laden would be mad to hide out here. Somalis gossip too much, they say, especially about foreigners. And no Somali could resist the $25 million price on bin Laden’s head.

"We would hand him over to the international court and claim the money," says police chief Hassan Awaale. "We have enough problems of our own without more from this man."