Hundreds of war refugees live around it in cardboard-and-thorn huts. If, as Baidoa’s resident militia claims, this was offered as a base for US military advisers, it was not a generous offer.
“The Americans got out their cars, walked around it once, then they left,” the nightwatchman, Hussein Ahmed, said. “They didn’t even play with the children.”
The team continued 10 miles down the Mogadishu road to a Soviet-built military depot. Its bunkers have caved in, electric cables and drainage pipes have been grubbed up; a large tortoise was the only sign of life.
If the Americans were assessing the RRA’s military strength, they should have looked at the boys with Kalashnikovs lounging in Baidoa’s souk. According to Mohamed Adan, the local RRA commander, the Americans did not stay long at the depot before heading back to the airstrip and then Nairobi.
The mission has heightened the expectation of strikes because, the RRA says, the country is overrun with terrorists.
“Somalia is controlled by fundamentalists, all linked to the mother organisation, al-Qaida,” said its leader Abdullahi Sheikh Ismail, who is acting chairman of an Ethiopian-backed alliance of warlords opposed to the government in Mogadishu.
“We estimate there are approximately 20,480 armed extremists in Somalia.”
The warlords want US backing so that they can attack these “terrorists”, who which they mean all the pro-government militias, including the national police.
If the Americans offer support, the attacks may be aimed at al-Itihaad al-Islamiya (Islamic Unity), a Somali group listed as a terrorist group and allegedly linked to al-Qaida.
Al-Itihaad was one of the many groups fighting for power after the dictator Siad Barre fled in 1991. But its militia was crushed by Ethiopian troops in 1997. Both the government and its sponsor, the UN, say it is no longer a military force and has no known links to al-Qaida. Rather, they say, it provides Islamic schools, courts, and basic healthcare: services which are scarce in Somalia.
“There could be some suspect individuals somewhere, but to the best of our knowledge there are no camps of any terrorist groups in Somalia, and no links with al-Qaida,” President Abdiqasim Salad Hassan said.”We have invited America to come and investigate. It would be good if it was a bit happier to cooperate.”
The warlords say that would be impossible, because Mr Hassan and his ministers are terrorists themselves. About 85% of the government belongs to al-Itihaad, according to Mr Ismail. But a the visit of a US diplomat to Mogadishu yesterday – the first US official there for seven years – suggests that Washington disagrees. It also suggests any anti-terrorism action in Somalia will, as in Yemen, be with the compliance of the government.
Mr Ismail is less exact on al-Itihaad. “They have annual meetings and quarterly meetings. They meet in Mogadishu… even in Afghanistan,” he said.
In fact the warlords’ claims are extensions of their personal ambitions. Mr Ismail says Merca, which his Rahanwein clan lays claim to, is the capital of terror. His defence secretary, General Mohammed Hersi Morgan, says that, contrary to UN reports, an al-Itihaad military camp on the island of Ras Kamboni is still active. But the site is close to his hometown, Kismaayo, which he is plotting to retake.