What comes after the Islamists’ defeat?

The week's news at a glance.

Somalia

The Islamists have been routed, said Aweys Osman Yusuf in Mogadishu’s Shabelle Media Network, but Somalia is far from calm. Ethiopian troops backing Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government easily chased the Union of Islamic Courts, or UIC, regime from Mogadishu. The Islamist leaders who brought repressive sharia law to much of Somalia are now gone; they fled across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen. But gone, too, is the reign of order they enforced. Now, once again, militias roam the capital, setting up roadblocks to extort money from car and bus passengers. Gunfire peppers the air. “People feel afraid to walk at night.”

Tragically, Somalia remains as divided as ever, said Gambia’s Daily Observer in an editorial. The U.S.-backed warlords who lost control of the capital when the UIC was on the rise last spring are now returning “with a vengeance.” We can expect them to remain loyal to their Ethiopian patrons. “Somalia is, therefore, now split politically along pro-Ethiopian and anti-Ethiopian lines.” The best solution would be to continue the negotiations that the government and the UIC started last year in Sudan. If neighboring African and Arab countries also come together and “rally behind the Somali people at their time of need,” there may be a chance for stability.

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Donald Mogeni

The Nation