Ugandan peace troops cling to Mogadishu’s K4 crossroads

Hiding from the sweltering sun and Islamist snipers behind sandbags, Ugandan troops obstinately defend a small but strategically crucial piece of tarmac: Mogadishu’s K4 junction.

“Whoever holds K4 controls Mogadishu” is a kind of motto for the African Union (AU) peacekeepers who rotate to this dangerous outpost on the edge of the confined area they control in the Somali capital.

“Kilometre Four” in southeastern Mogadishu is where the airport road meets several other key thoroughfares and is a major flashpoint in the war-ravaged seaside city.

Hunkering down behind their makeshift fortifications of canvas and sand, a few dozen Ugandan troops from the AU’s peacekeeping mission in Somalia (Amisom) keep watch on the prized intersection.

From the patchy shade provided by the ruins of the building where they have set up their position, they look on as swarms of passengers clamber in and out of minibuses with their bundles and bales.

The junction’s imperturbable traffic warden is a T-55 tank parked between the crumbling walls of what was once Mogadishu’s largest cinema.

The barrel of its cannon stares down a deserted road which serves as the city’s unofficial frontline and leads to the northern neighbourhoods harbouring the Shebab, Somalia’s feared Al Qaeda-inspired militants.

Heads covered with heavy-duty helmets and sunk into their bullet-proof vests, Ugandan soldiers posted on their base’s roof scan the horizon anxiously for an enemy they rarely see.

“Snipers have been shooting at us since the morning,” says Kenneth Wabwire, a young captain with Amisom, sitting on a khaki-painted ammunition box.

In a constant state of alert and under the scolding Somali sun, any attempt to make their base comfortable would be futile and the contingent’s paraphernalia is messily scattered across the rooftop.

The K4 unit’s modest digs include an army cot sheltered by camouflaged tenting, with weights and a pair of pink plastic slippers strewn over the sizzling concrete terrace.

Their finger on the trigger, a dozen peacekeepers with sleepless red eyes squint through a tiny loophole in their sandbags to detect the enemy.

Crouching and sweating heavily, one officer points towards a sun-baked chalk-white mosque: “The enemy snipers are posted there, you see.”

The insurgents take relentless pot shots at the Amisom force, as evidenced by a pock-marked wall behind their shooting position.

“Generally, we ignore them,” says Wabwire. “But we answer immediately if they shoot with mortars, that’s too dangerous.”

“We try to identify the origin point and to limit the collateral damage,” he says, in reference to the dozens of civilians who die each month when caught in an exchange of mortar shelling.

Below him, six neatly lined-up mortars stand in a dusty courtyard, aimed at insurgent positions and their Bakara market stronghold.

“These people are less than a kilometre away but they cannot approach. They are just harassing us, that’s their only tactic,” says Amisom spokesman Ba-Hoku Barigye.

“But because of its strategic location, K4 is particularly exposed, and almost daily targeted by insurgents,” he admits.

Rusty iron sheets and more sandbags block the windows of the building where the unit has set up its makeshift dormitory, a few plastic tables serving as a chow hall and a rudimentary infirmary.

“It used to be the Egyptian embassy,” says Mulki, who owns the next door villa.

As a flurry of machinegun fire rips through the sky, the smiling middle-aged woman barely flinches. “This? It’s the music we hear every day. And our Ugandan friends are protecting us.”

Somalia Islamist group bans video MOGADISHU, January 28, 2010 (AFP) - Somalia’s Islamist insurgents on Thursday banned video games, one of the last forms of entertainment left for local youth, arguing they were destroying the country’s social fabric.

The Hezb al-Islam group, currently engaged in a deadly insurgency against the internationally-backed federal government, made the annoucement in a statement circulated in the areas it controls.

“Starting two days after this statement’s date of issue, all video game playing centres in the areas under Hezb al-Islam control should be closed and playing video games will be prohibited,” it said.

“Video games are designed in such a way that they destroy our social traditions and for that reason, anybody found ignoring this order will be punished and equipment will be confiscated,” it said.

It was signed by Sheikh Mohamed Omar, head of propaganda for Hezb al-Islam, an insurgent group headed by influential cleric Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys and which controls densely-populated areas in and around Mogadishu.

Video games became particularly popular in areas on the outskirts of Mogadishu housing tens of thousands of families who fled the fighting in the capital since watching films on DVDs was also banned.

Children and teenagers would gather after school in small centres like cybercafes where PlayStations were wired up and a 30-minute game cost 5,000 Somali shillings (around 15 US cents).

“Hezb al-Islam officials ordered us to close our video game centres so today we’re closed. We don’t have a choice,” said Ali Hidig, a game centre owner in Elashabiyaha, a village hosting refugees on the ouskirts of Mogadishu.

“Young boys used to like coming here for entertainment after school but it looks like this is now a thing of the past,” he told AFP.

The disappointment was deep among teenage boys in the area, where movies and sports are also banned.

“We used to watch movies. They were banned. Now the PlayStations we had fun with are also banned. This country is not for young people like me,” said Abdirahman Hirsi, a 19-year-old from Lafole town.

“They have basically banned everything that is fun, so we feel increasingly bored,” said another boy.

Abdi Moge, an older resident in the village, argued that there were few alternatives to occupy young people other than joining an armed group.

“Who knows what else the children are going to do now. It’s not as if there was proper education for them. The more they are prevented from playing, the more likely they are to join the fighting,” he said.

Hezb al-Islam and their insurgency comrades from the Al Qaeda-inspired Shebab group are implementing a very strict form of Sharia (Islamic law) in the areas they control.

The Hezb al-Islam statement did not make clear what forms of punishment would be reserved for diehard gamers caught flouting the ban.

However, in recent months across Somalia, people found dancing to traditional songs have been flogged, men guilty of trimming their beards arrested and youth playing football in shorts reprimanded by religious police units.

Satellite television is also banned in many areas and there are no cinemas left in central and southern Somalia, which are under Islamist control.

Rights groups have accused all sides involved of recruiting children in the fighting that has rocked the country since the 1991 ouster of former president Mohamed Siad Barre.