In Somalia, a shaky front line barely holds back the ‘dogs of war’

AW DHEEGLE, Somalia: The helicopter pilot is worried. Any more than 20 minutes in this shattered frontline village and Somalia’s Al-Shabab militants could start lobbing mortars at their position.

Roughly 1,000 Somali National Army (SNA) forces are holding Awdheegle, a strategic town roughly 60 kilometers outside the capital Mogadishu, with the help of an African Union contingent after it was retaken less than seven weeks ago from the Al-Qaeda-linked militants.

But their hold is shaky and the helicopter – one of the few in the SNA fleet and showing its age – is a tempting target for the insurgents just a few miles away.

“Five more minutes, and I would have left you,” the pilot tells the reporters as they clamber back in, the chopper stuttering up and banking over the town’s remains.

There is not much left to destroy in Awdheegle.

“I found my house demolished. I have nothing to rebuild it,” said recently returned resident Abdi Osman Hassan, 65.

It is a similar story some 10 miles back toward Mogadishu at the deserted settlements of Sabiid and Canole.

The area is a cratered mess thanks to drone and air strikes, which SNA commanders said were the only option after the militants dug in, creating tunnels and littering the area with explosives.

Overwhelming firepower dislodged them in June, but the militants blew the bridge connecting the two settlements as they withdrew – using so much dynamite that there was barely a scrap left to scavenge.

The new bridge, constructed with Turkish assistance, was recently completed under the watchful eye of a professional, if taciturn, Ugandan army unit.

A Turkish contractor, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, was pessimistic after a month on the front line, where decent food and water are often scarce.

“If the powers do not behave and talk to each other, then the bridge…,” he clicked his fingers to indicate a new explosion.

And right now, he said, “everyone is feeding the dogs of war.”