Aidan Hartley Aidan Hartley

Terror in Mogadishu

Aidan Hartley has been in Somalia, and says that the spectacularly failed and violent state could become a springboard for an Africa-wide Islamic jihad

issue 08 October 2005

On a recent drive in downtown Mogadishu with ten heavily armed bodyguards, I passed the site of the old US embassy, and observed a melancholy scene that Britain and the USA might ponder if they decide to bale out of Iraq early. The embassy has been totally demolished, either out of hatred or because Mogadishu’s benighted inhabitants need bricks with which to build their hovels.

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