Swift justice, long haul

Almost half of the patients at Kenya's missionary Kijabe Hospital are Somalis, and many of them fly in from Mogadishu with a singular problem: gunshot wounds. They are daily tribulations in Somalia, where most men tote AK-47s and other arms. The country has seen 16 years of lawless warlordism and crime.

By contrast, the last six months have brought too much law, as Islamists took power and instilled Shariah rule. Now they, too, have gone, shoved out by Ethiopian forces. What's left are Somalia's feeble interim government and an equally feeble hope that peace may stick this time.

At the hospital, Somali pastor Mohamed Omar Ibrahim has heard general relief from his countrymen about the Islamist defeat. But "if the government does not bring law and order very quickly, people will change their mind," he told WORLD. "We can only talk about today. We cannot talk about tomorrow."

Today for Somalis means waiting to see if the internationally recognized Transitional Federal Government, formed in 2004, can stand on its own. Until now, its leaders have been based in Baidoa, southwest of Mogadishu, too weak to claim the capital. With the protection of Ethiopian forces, President Abdullahi Yusuf set foot in Mogadishu Jan. 8 for the first time since he became leader.

The same day brought another surprise: a U.S. operation in the country for the first time since 1993, when the failed "Black Hawk Down" mission killed 18 servicemen. This time, the mission was to root out al-Qaeda members reportedly driven into southern forests with the Islamists. Somalia's potential to become a terrorist haven-particularly under the auspices of the Islamic Courts Union-has long worried U.S. officials.

Air strikes involving at least one AC-130 gunship killed eight militants, officials said. Navy ships also moved to Somalia's southern coast to intercept any terrorists fleeing by sea. U.S. officials say top al-Qaeda terrorists were the target of the strikes: explosives expert Abu Taha al-Sudani, a reportedly close associate of Osama bin Laden; and Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, responsible for the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 225. It is unclear if the men died in the U.S. attacks.

Since 2002, the United States has been ready to ferret out al-Qaeda terrorists in the Horn of Africa, forming a joint military and civilian task force based in Djibouti. The task force also does aid work, digging wells and air-dropping food and mosquito nets into flood-hit eastern Kenya last month.

Wearied by warlords, Somalis initially welcomed the Islamic Courts Union, a disparate group that involved both extremists and moderates. They quickly established some stability, defeating warlords in Mogadishu, opening ports, and returning looted property. The city's residents even felt safe enough to walk their streets again. But hardliners steered the Courts, and Shariah law soon meant chopping off limbs and executing criminals; a ban on khat, a popular and mildly narcotic leaf; and segregating women. The Courts banned movies and entertainment.

History and old enmities explain why Ethiopia has plunged into Somalia's woes. Somali leaders in the 1970s dreamed of creating a "Greater Somalia" that would include the eastern, largely Somali tribal areas of Ethiopia and Kenya, and their ambitions triggered territorial wars.

Last year, one Islamic Courts hardliner, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, resurrected the expansionist idea, proclaiming: "We will leave no stone unturned to integrate our Somali brothers in Kenya and Ethiopia and restore their freedom to live with their ancestors in Somalia."

For Ethiopia's part, leaders there worried that the Islamists would support secessionists in the country's Ogaden region, populated mostly by ethnic Somalis. The two countries have been enemies for decades, fighting territorial wars that stem from borders drawn during colonial times. Now Ethiopian forces are keeping the peace in Somalia, but leaders have said they do not want to stay more than a few weeks.

Given the longstanding enmity, a quick exit may help keep the calm. Somalis who have talked to Omar have said, "It's good that the fundamentalists are out, but we are not sure about the Ethiopians staying longer." The problem, however, is that the interim government needs a peacekeeping force-and one without Ethiopians-to consolidate its control that the UN backed before war broke out.

The restiveness over Somalia's new direction extends across seas to Somali-Americans. In Washington Jan. 9, a group called the Somali Diaspora Network held a press conference at the National Press Club, and panelists said the Ethiopian invasion and U.S. air strikes would likely cause more instability, not less.

Panelist Asha Ahmed Abdalla is one of the 275 members of Somalia's transitional parliament, and she criticized President Yusuf for collaborating secretly with Ethiopia. "Parliament has final say on what the president [does]," she said, and "parliament has not sent any invitation to Addis."

Underscoring the divisions among Somalis, not everyone agreed with the panel's praise for the Islamic Courts. Zeynab Abdullahi, a Washington-area engineer, leapt out of her chair, whisked her shawl off her shoulders, and draped it over her head in a veil: This, she said, was what the Courts wanted for women.

Nor was the Islamic Courts' Islam similar to Somalia's historical, nomadic brand, Abdullahi said: "'Who was Muhammad?' I asked my grandmother, and [she would say], 'Just some Arab.'" Abudallahi worried that the Islamic Courts wanted to impose their laws-and their jihad-on all of Somalia.

With the Islamists gone, however, "this is an opportunity for Somalia to be able to get over 16 years of civil war and death and destruction," Abdullahi later said.

Peace in Somalia would also soothe the country's neighbors. In Uganda, which does not border Somalia, President Yoweri Museveni offered about 800 troops for peacekeeping, hoping in the long run to stanch a flourishing small arms trade that extends from Somalia into Uganda's restive northern provinces.

Besides protecting its vulnerable east, Kenya would also like to avert an influx of Somali refugees into its already swollen Dadaab Camp. In early January officials sealed Kenya's borders to prevent escaping Islamists seeping in. Refugees have been turning up at the Kenyan frontier for months, fearing full-scale war.

But southern Somalis are also grappling with natural, not just man-made, disasters. After they lost crops and livestock to a two-year drought, devastating floods late last year displaced tens of thousands. But with the violence, most international humanitarian groups have fled, largely leaving local nonprofits to meet food and medical needs.

"People had not really recovered from the drought before this catastrophe of excess water," explained Reuben Nzuki, a disaster management advisor for the U.K.-based group Tearfund. "Food has not been grown and [there are not] enough animals to provide for the people."

Omar hoped, too, that Kenya would allow flights to enter from Mogadishu and injured, unarmed refugees to cross its borders. Medical care is scarce in Somalia, and Somalis know by word-of-mouth that Kijabe Hospital offers good care. Omar speaks to patients and their families, and often checks on how some in Nairobi are healing after treatment.

That's when he gets to talk about life in Somalia. "To me and a lot of others the way we see it is Rome was not built in a day," Omar said. "The thing we have to ask ourselves is if the Somali government is growing in the right direction. This government is starting from zero."