TFG gives much needed food medicine to displaced people..PICS

[Socod_badne]

Originally posted by General Duke:

...Nothing to suggest the TFG was hampering anything, but the

Harassment part

should be looked into.

It's more than infrequent cases of "government" troop harrassment. From independent reports and eye-witness accounts it's more systematic harrassment with expressed intent to hassle travelers. Read this account by Martin Fletcher of TimesOnline (I assure you he doesn't own looted properties in Moga):

 

"The Government’s own army consists of barely 5,000 “soldiers” — former members of the warlords’ militias who inspire fear, not confidence. They man checkpoints and stand on corners in central Mogadishu, flaunting their semi-automatics. Many chew qat. Some steal and extort (we twice had to pay bribes at checkpoints).

 

 

Now, contrast it with this observation made by same reporter about pre-Habashi/TFG invasion days:

 

"We had first visited Mogadishu early last December, five months after the Courts ousted the warlords, and found a city still rejoicing. Gone were the ubiquitous checkpoints where the warlords’ militias killed, extorted and stole. Gone were their “technicals” — Jeeps with heavy machineguns mounted in the back. Hundreds of Somalis were returning from foreign exile, businesses were reopening, and for the first time in a generation people could walk around safely amid the ruins of their once-fine capital, even at night."

 

 

Martin Fletcher - TimesOnline