Introduction

Abstract

Identifying the best way to manage everyday security in fragile post-conflict cities is as challenging today as it has ever been, and Mogadishu is one of the most challenging in the world, as the capital of the notoriously failed state of Somalia. This Whitehall Paper explores the ways in which Mogadishu’s inhabitants try to stay out of harm’s way, from security officials in the presidential compound of Villa Somalia to the city’s powerful district commissioners, from patrolling policemen to the women road-sweepers in the rubbish-filled alleyways of the Waberi district. Its central proposition is that security is best understood as a coherent relationship or activity based on the need for physical safety today, rather than in the future. It uses the neighbourhood-watch schemes developed in certain districts of Mogadishu−most notably Waberi− to understand the ways in which the city’s inhabitants respond to the security models promoted by international advisers, who in fact are based in the safety of the city’s Aden Adde International Airport. The most immediate security challenges confronting the city are terrorism-related, with the Islamic militant group Al-Shabaab the main concern, but the legacy of 25 years of conflict and violence means that the security threats faced by Mogadishu overlap with current terrorism and indeed are mutually reinforcing and indicative of broader political and social tensions. Special attention is paid in this paper to the city’s security plan and the points at which the local and the international meet. The level of insecurity in Mogadishu− and the length of time this insecurity has persisted− is extreme: at the time of writing, a truck bomb at a busy junction near key ministry buildings had killed at least 350 people, the country’s deadliest attack. Yet all sectors of society are exposed to a range of physical threats on a daily basis, arising from interclan conflicts, Al-Shabaab attacks, revenge killings, trigger-happy guards, or as a result of conflicts about land, property and livestock. Internally displaced persons (IDPs), members of minority clans and women are the