as an enemy retreats, clans carve up somalia as ... - pulitzer

DHOBLEY, Somalia — Adan Dahir Hassan sits in a bald office, wires dangling from the ceil-ing, handing out death sentences. Recently in-stalled by an Islamist warlord, Mr. Hassan re-called how he had ordered a soldier who had killed a civilian, possibly by accident, to be delivered to the victim’s family, which promptly shot him in the head.

“It’s Islamic law,” said Mr. Hassan, the professed district commissioner of this bullet-riddled town. “That’s what makes the community feel happy.” Forthefirsttimeinyears,theShababIslamistgroup that has long tormented Somalis is reced-ing from several areas at once, including this one, handing the Transitional Federal Government an

As an Enemy Retreats, Clans Carve Up Somalia

by Jeffrey Gettleman

VOL. CLX . . . No. 55,524 © 2011 The New York Times SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2011

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By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

WASHINGTON — Armed withworrisome poll data and seekingto maintain the legislative upperhand, Congressional Republicanswho have spent the balance ofthe year pouring buckets of crit-icism on the Obama administra-tion are shifting to a more re-strained approach as they ponderhow to respond to the president’sjobs plan.

Back from a summer break intheir districts — where theyfaced constituents howling aboutWashington bickering and intran-sigence — Republicans on Fridayleft the door open to several ele-ments of the president’s $447 bil-lion jobs package of tax cuts andspending programs, even thosethat just five weeks ago were metwith vehement opposition.

The abrupt change in tone andsubstance after months of sear-ing budget fights that turned off awatching public suggested thatRepublicans on Capitol Hill wereanxious about entering the 2012races with a reputation more forconfrontation than compromise.

“People expect results, andthey’re very frustrated that theyare not seeing that coming out ofWashington,” RepresentativeCharles Boustany Jr., Republicanof Louisiana, said in an interview.“That implies that we have tohave some compromise, somearea where we agree that we’regoing to move things forward forthe better.”

Speaker John A. Boehner andRepresentative Eric Cantor ofVirginia are also taking a moreconciliatory approach than inprevious fiscal battles, when bothmen essentially declared war onthe administration’s policies. “Weare going to work together,” Mr.Cantor said, adding, “I think it’stime to build consensus here.”

On Friday, the two leaders sentan exceedingly polite letter to Mr.Obama asking that he send anybills containing his jobs plans tothe Congressional Budget Officeso that their costs can be evaluat-ed. “It is our desire to work to-gether to find common groundbetween your ideas and ours,”the letter read, in a significantswitch from a few weeks ago,

G.O.P. IS CAUTIOUSIN JOBS RESPONSE

Constituents’ Anger Feltas Elections Near

Continued on Page A13

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

DHOBLEY, Somalia — AdanDahir Hassan sits in a bald office,wires dangling from the ceiling,handing out death sentences. Re-cently installed by an Islamistwarlord, Mr. Hassan recalledhow he had ordered a soldier whohad killed a civilian, possibly byaccident, to be delivered to thevictim’s family, which promptlyshot him in the head.

“It’s Islamic law,” said Mr.Hassan, the professed district

commissioner of this bullet-rid-dled town. “That’s what makesthe community feel happy.”

For the first time in years, theShabab Islamist group that haslong tormented Somalis is reced-ing from several areas at once,including this one, handing theTransitional Federal Governmentan enormous opportunity to fi-nally step outside the capital andbegin uniting this fractious coun-try after two decades of war.

Instead, a messy, violent, clan-nish scramble is emerging over

who will take control. This is exactly what the United

States and other donors hadhoped to avoid by investing mil-lions of dollars in the transitionalgovernment, viewing it as thebest antidote to Somalia’s chron-ic instability and a bulwarkagainst Islamic extremism.

But the government is tooweak, corrupt, divided and disor-ganized to mount a claim beyondMogadishu, the capital, leavingclan warlords, Islamist militias

SVEN TORFINN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Militiamen under Sheik Ahmed Madobe are vying for control of Dhobley, a town in Somalia.



By THOMAS KAPLAN and KATE TAYLOR

Panicked Democrats are re-leasing a barrage of negativetelevision advertising, turning tothe national party for a cash infu-sion and pleading with PresidentObama’s network of supportersfor help as they confront whatseemed impossible two monthsago: defeat in the heavily Demo-cratic House district last repre-sented by Anthony D. Weiner.

Party leaders say the presi-dent’s flagging popularity anddefections among Jewish votershave left them facing the embar-rassing possibility that their can-didate, Assemblyman David I.Weprin, could lose New York’sNinth Congressional District to alittle-known Republican busi-nessman who has never heldelected office.

A new poll released on Fridayshowed Bob Turner, the Repub-

lican, with a six-point lead overMr. Weprin. The election is onTuesday, and even though law-makers have discussed eliminat-ing the district in redistrictingnext year, the race has becomesymbolically important as an in-dication of how much Mr. Oba-ma’s unpopularity might affectother Democratic candidates.

“This has been a difficult cam-paign, and this campaign has hadsome major operational prob-lems,” said Assemblyman Vito J.Lopez, chairman of the BrooklynDemocratic Party.

Mr. Lopez said that he expect-ed Mr. Weprin to win, but that thecampaign needed to becomemuch more aggressive in the fi-nal days.

Steven A. Greenberg, a pollster

Fearing Loss of a House Seat,Democrats Make a Late Push


By MOTOKO RICH

The dismal state of the econ-omy is the main reason manycompanies are reluctant to hireworkers, and few executives aresaying that President Obama’sjobs plan — while welcome — willchange their minds any timesoon.

That sentiment was echoedacross numerous industries byexecutives in companies big andsmall on Friday, underscoringthe challenge for the Obama ad-ministration as it tries to encour-age hiring and perk up the mori-bund economy.

The plan failed to generate anyoptimism on Wall Street as theStandard & Poor’s 500-stock in-dex and the Dow Jones industrialaverage each fell about 2.7 per-cent. [Page B6.]

As President Obama faced anuphill battle in Congress to winsupport even for portions of theplan, many employers dismissedthe notion that any particular taxbreak or incentive would be per-suasive. Instead, they said theytended to hire more workers orexpand when the economy im-proved.

Companies are focused on jit-tery consumer confidence, an un-stable stock market, perceivedobstacles to business expansionlike government regulation and,above all, swings in demand fortheir products.

“You still need to have thebusiness need to hire,” said Jef-fery Braverman, owner of Nuts-online, an e-commerce companyin Cranford, N.J., that sells nutsand dried fruit. While a $4,000credit could offset the cost of thecompany’s lowest-cost health in-surance plan, he said, it wouldnot spur him to hire someone.“Business demand is what driveshiring,” he said.

Indeed, the industries that arehiring workers now — like tech-nology and energy — are thosewhere business is strong, in con-

trast to the overall economy. Ad-ministration officials and someeconomists, of course, say theybelieve the president’s plan, ifadopted, could help increase de-mand more broadly. The pro-posed payroll tax cuts for individ-uals should spur consumerspending and in turn, promptcompanies to hire more people.

But the plan also includes in-centives for companies to hiremore workers, including a pay-roll tax cut for businesses and a$4,000 tax credit for those em-ployers that hire people whohave been out of work for sixmonths or more.

To the extent these measurescould be used, many employerssaid they would most likely sup-port people whom companieswere planning to hire anyway.

Chesapeake Energy, one of thebiggest explorers of oil and gas inshale fields across the country,for example, said it had 800 posi-

Employers Say Jobs PlanWon’t Lead to Hiring Spur

Health of Overall Economy and DemandAre Cited as Forceful Deterrents


CHANG W. LEE/THE NEW YORK TIMES

New York was already on alert for this weekend’s memorial of the Sept. 11 attacks, but amid reports of a bomb plot, security effortswere escalated around the city, including on Wall Street near the New York Stock Exchange, as well as in Washington. Page A8.

On Guard for Anniversary

By DAMIEN CAVE

COBÁN, Guatemala — Theyburned villages, killed childrenand, just a winding road awayfrom here in 1982, the Guatema-lan military also massacred hun-dreds of Mayan peasants, aftertorturing old men and rapingyoung women.

But now, all across these high-lands once ravaged by a 36-yearcivil war, the region’s bloodiestanti-Communist conflict, Guate-malans are demanding the un-thinkable — a strong military,back in their communities.

That is how desperate thiscountry has become as gangsand Mexican drug cartels run fe-ver-wild, capturing territory andcorrupting institutions so thatGuatemala will remain a safe ha-ven for cocaine, guns, moneylaundering and new recruits.

“It’s even scarier now thanduring the war,” said JosefinaMolina, 52, making tamales a fewsteps from where a neighbor waskilled two days earlier. “The dan-ger used to be in the mountains— now it’s everywhere.”

Guatemala’s presidential elec-tion on Sunday could represent aturning point. The three top con-tenders have all called for astronger, crime-fighting military,

borrowing heavily from the Mex-ican model of attacking the drugcartels head-on, even though thatstrategy has claimed more than40,000 lives without yieldingpeace.

The front-runner is consideredto be Otto Pérez Molina, a formergeneral whose campaign symbolis an iron fist. Reserved and intel-lectual, he both commandedtroops during the worst atrocitiesof the war and negotiated the1996 peace accords that ended it.

“He knows the strategies forfighting,” said Fábio DagobertoMiza, a campaign leader.

But the question playing on re-peat is whether the next govern-

ment will get tough without vio-lating human rights.

“For many, there is a sensethat the military is going to putthings in order,” said RaquelZelaya, executive director of AsíEs, a research group. And yet,she and others added, what ifthat faith is misplaced?

“The notion that the military isthe ‘deus ex machina’ that’s go-ing to resolve everything” doesnot recognize that the military“may also be part of the prob-lem,” said Cynthia Arnson, an ex-pert at Woodrow Wilson Interna-tional Center for Scholars.

Here in Cobán, a coffee town in

Desperate Guatemalans Embrace an ‘Iron Fist’


By DAN FROSCH and JANET ROBERTS

DENVER — This summer, anExxon Mobil pipeline carrying oilacross Montana burst suddenly,soiling the swollen YellowstoneRiver with an estimated 42,000gallons of crude just weeks aftera company inspection and federalreview had found nothing seri-ously wrong.

And in the Midwest, a 35-milestretch of the Kalamazoo Rivernear Marshall, Mich., once teem-ing with swimmers and boaters,remains closed nearly 14 monthsafter an Enbridge Energy pipe-line hemorrhaged 843,000 gallonsof oil that will cost more than$500 million to clean up.

While investigators have yet todetermine the cause of either ac-cident, the spills have drawn at-tention to oversight of the 167,000-mile system of hazardous liquidpipelines crisscrossing the na-tion.

The little-known federal agen-cy charged with monitoring thesystem and enforcing safety

Pipeline SpillsPut SafeguardsUnder Scrutiny


Thousands of people tore down a pro-tective wall around the Israeli Embassy,and set a fire near the grounds, whileothers defaced the headquarters of theEgyptian Interior Ministry. PAGE A4

INTERNATIONAL A4-7

Crowd Attacks Cairo Buildings

Families of people killed in the crash ofFlight 93 in Shanksville, Pa., will have aprivate service to bury the unidentifiedremains of the victims. PAGE A8

NATIONAL A8-14

Laying Victims to Rest, QuietlyThe final two American men were elimi-nated from the United States Open inthe quarterfinals: Andy Roddick, below,by Rafael Nadal, and John Isner byAndy Murray. PAGE B8

SPORTSSATURDAY B8-12

Last American Men Are Out

A central banker’s resignation height-ened concern over Greek debt. PAGE B1

BUSINESS DAY B1-7

Widening Discord in Europe

The stars of Man-chester United. Ja-son Lee cleans up.Nile Rodgers re-calls his childhood.

T STYLES

THIS WEEKEND

The Fall Men’sFashion Issue

Gail Collins PAGE A19

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A18-19

Many New Yorkers say they will sit outthe public events marking the 10th anni-versary of the Sept. 11 attacks. PAGE A15

NEW YORK A15-16

Staying Away From 9/11

Human error may be to blame for apower failure that affected more thansix million people in the West. PAGE A14

Casting Light on a Blackout

Sept. 11 exhibitions vary greatly inscope and effect, from raw data, to docu-mentarylike evidence, to art. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-8

Different Ways to Remember

The first collections head down the run-ways as the shows begin. A fashion re-view by Cathy Horyn. PAGE A20

FASHION A20

New York Fashion Week

C M Y K Yxxx,2011-09-10,A,001,Bs-BK,E2

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER10, 2011

enormous opportunity to finally step outside thecapital and begin uniting this fractious country after two decades of war.

Instead, a messy, violent, clannish scramble is emerging over who will take control.

This is exactly what the United States and oth-er donors had hoped to avoid by investing millions of dollars in the transitional government, viewing it as the best antidote to Somalia’s chronic instability and a bulwark against Islamic extremism.

But the government is too weak, corrupt, di-vided and disorganized to mount a claim beyond Mogadishu, the capital, leaving clan warlords, Islamist militias and proxy forces armed by for-eign governments to battle it out for the regions the Shabab are losing.

Already, clashes have erupted between the an-ti-Shababforcesfightingforthespoils,androad-blocks operated by clan militias have resurfaced on the streets of Mogadishu, even though the govern-ment says it is in control. Many analysts say both the Shabab and the government are splintering and predict that the warfare will only increase, compli-cating the response to Somalia’s widening famine. “What you now have is a free-for-all contest in which clans are unilaterally carving up the coun-try into unviable clan enclaves and cantons,” said Rashid Abdi, an analyst for the International Crisis Group, which studies conflicts. “The way thingsare going, the risk of future interregional wars and instability is real,” Mr. Abdi added, “even after Al Shabab is defeated.”

More than 20 separate new ministates, includ-ing one for a drought-stricken area incongruously A6 Ø Y INTERNATIONALTHE NEW YORK TIMES SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2011

flanked by dozens of baby-facedfighters. He said he had quit theShabab because “they’re killers,”though several analysts said itwas a more prosaic breakup over

smuggling fees.Also prowling around Dhobley,

between crumbling buildings andstinking piles of animal carcassesfrom the drought, are hundreds

of gunmen in camouflage fightingfor another man, known as theProfessor.

Mohamed Abdi Mohamed, bet-ter known as Professor Gandhi,is a former university lecturerwho says he holds two FrenchPh.D.’s — in geology and anthro-pology. He has formed his ownstate, Azania, complete with twohouses of representatives andspecial seats for women, thoughhe is not actually in Dhobley andseems to spend a lot of time inKenya.

“Let’s just say Madobe and Ihave different values,” ProfessorGandhi said from the tearoom ofa fancy hotel in Nairobi, the Ken-yan capital, where he was wear-ing gold-rimmed glasses and astylish thick cotton blazer.

Professor Gandhi’s and SheikMadobe’s forces, working simul-taneously though not quite to-gether, recently pushed the Sha-bab out of a few towns along theKenyan border. The Kenyan mil-itary has been backing them up,and according to American diplo-matic cables, the Chinese govern-ment gave Kenya weapons anduniforms for the Somali militia-men, possibly because there is oilin southern Somalia that the Chi-nese covet.

A similar situation is unfoldingnear the Ethiopian border, wherean Ethiopian-backed militia hasdefeated Shabab forces and es-tablished a narrow zone of con-trol. In central Somalia, anothermilitia, Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama’a,which also receives Ethiopian

weapons, has seized severaltowns from the Shabab as well.

The Shabab seem to be un-dercut by internal fissures,though they still have thousandsof fighters. Several leaders, in-cluding Fazul Abdullah Moham-med, have recently been killed,and the Shabab’s policy of block-ing Western food aid at a time offamine has meant that hundredsof thousands of people have fledtheir territory, depleting the mil-itants’ resources and deprivingthem of recruits. Those who re-main are often too poor to tax ortoo sick to soldier.

In August, the Shabab an-nounced they were pulling out ofMogadishu for the first time inyears, though some fighters ap-parently stayed behind to terror-ize the population and beheadmore than a dozen people.

The new anti-Shabab forceshave differing relationships withthe transitional government.Sheik Madobe says he is willingto work with transitional leaders;Professor Gandhi dismissedthem as a lost cause. But even thelocal administrations marginallyaligned with the government saythey do not get much help fromMogadishu and now want tobreak away.

“Separation, that’s our dream,”said Abdirashid Hassan Abdinur,a local official in Dolo, near theEthiopian border. As for a name,he said they were still working onthat. “All I can say is that we’llpick it here, not at some foreignhotel.”

and proxy forces armed by for-eign governments to battle it outfor the regions the Shabab arelosing.

Already, clashes have eruptedbetween the anti-Shabab forcesfighting for the spoils, and road-blocks operated by clan militiashave resurfaced on the streets ofMogadishu, even though the gov-ernment says it is in control.Many analysts say both the Sha-bab and the government aresplintering and predict that thewarfare will only increase, com-plicating the response to Soma-lia’s widening famine.

“What you now have is a free-for-all contest in which clans areunilaterally carving up the coun-try into unviable clan enclavesand cantons,” said Rashid Abdi,an analyst for the InternationalCrisis Group, which studies con-flicts. “The way things are going,the risk of future interregionalwars and instability is real,” Mr.Abdi added, “even after Al Sha-bab is defeated.’’

More than 20 separate newministates, including one for adrought-stricken area incongru-ously named Greenland, havesprouted up across Somalia,some little more than Web sitesor so-called briefcase govern-ments, others heavily armed, alleager for international recogni-tion and the money that maycome with it.

Officials with the 9,000-strongAfrican Union peacekeepingforce, the backbone of security inMogadishu, say they are deeplyconcerned by this fragmentation,reminiscent of Somalia’s warlorddays after the government col-lapsed in 1991.

“What was holding everybodytogether is now gone,” lamentedan African Union official, whoasked not to be identified becausehe was departing from the officialline that all is well in Mogadishu.“All these people who came to-gether to fight the Shabab arenow starting to fight each other.We weren’t prepared for this. It’shappening too fast.”

American officials are strug-gling to keep up with Somalia’srapidly evolving — or some saydevolving — politics, saying they

have lost faith in the transitionalgovernment’s leaders and arenow open to the idea of financingsome local security forces, part ofwhat they call a “dual track” ap-proach to supporting the nationaland local governments at thesame time.

“It wouldn’t be the worst thingin the world to have a local leaderwith some charisma and grass-roots support,” said one Ameri-can official, who was not author-ized to speak publicly.

Perhaps no area better illus-trates the creeping warlordismthan Dhobley, a forlorn little townnear the Kenyan border contest-ed by two new militias, one led bya dapper, French-educated intel-lectual, the other by an Islamistsheik who used to be in leaguewith the Shabab.

People are starving here, vic-tims of Somalia’s famine, 70-pound adults and tiny babieswith skin cracked like old paint.But there are few aid organiza-tions around. They have beenscared off by the hundreds of un-disciplined militiamen, who con-stantly fire off their guns andhave killed each other in recentweeks.

The gunmen in solid green fa-tigues belong to Ahmed Madobe,the Islamist sheik-turned-war-lord who just a few years ago washunted down by American forces,wounded by shrapnel during anair raid and then spirited away to

an Ethiopian prison.“I wasn’t just in the Shabab; I

helped found it,” Sheik Madobeboasted the other day, as he sat ina tent on Dhobley’s outskirts,

As an Islamist Enemy Retreats, Clans Fight One Another to Carve Up SomaliaFrom Page A1

PHOTOGRAPHS BY SVEN TORFINN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Militiamen led by Sheik Ahmed Madobe, a former member of the Shabab Islamist insurgent group. His forces helped push the Shabab out of a few towns.

Somalis fleeing the famine in south central Somalia stop in anarea controlled by Sheik Madobe on their way to Kenya.

A government istoo weak to fill thevacuum left by a routof insurgents.

Galkayo

Belet Weyne

Dhobley

Mogadishu

Galmudug

Ras Aseyr

Sool, Sanaag and Cayn

ETHIOPIA

Indian Ocean

Sheik Atom’s group

Independent militias

Ethiopian backedmilitias

Adado

LOWER JUBA

MIDDLE JUBA LOWER

SHABELLE

GALGADUUD

HIRAAN

BAY

BAKOOL

MIDDLE

SHABELLE GEDO

MUDUG

NUGAAL

AWDAL

MARODI

JEEH

TOGDHEER SOOL

SANAAG

BARI

Calula

Himanand Heeb

Shabelle ValleyAdministration

AhluSunna

Dhobley area is contested by two heavily armed militias, the Ras Kamboni Movement and Azania.

Greenland, another self-declared state, seeks to control Middle and Lower Juba.

Transitional Federal Government

The internationally recognized authority in

Somalia, though it controls only the

capital, Mogadishu, with the help of 9,000

African Union peacekeepers

Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama’a

Somaliland has declared independence from the rest of Somalia and even held free, internationally approved elections, though it is not recog-nized as a separate country.

Puntland region has

been semi-autonomous for years and

is widely known as a

bastion of organized

crime.

The colors on the map represent areas claimed by local and regional administrations. Clan names are in italic.

X - Controlled by pirates

S O M A L I A

A Country Broken Into Pieces

C u r r e n t l yc o n t r o l l e d b y

t h e S h a b a b

S o m a l i l a n d P u n t l a n d

Warlords and clan-based militias are creating ministates in Somalia to fill the void left by the retreat of the Shabab, the radical Islamist militia group that has sworn allegiance to Al Qaeda.

Previously controlledby the ShababUntil recently, the radical militia controlled most of the country south of this line, except for Mogadishu.

Sources: Nongovernmental organizations and interviews with clan leaders THE NEW YORK TIMES

200 MILES

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

By NADA BAKRI

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Tens ofthousands of Syrians took to thestreets on Friday to call for in-ternational protection from Pres-ident Bashar al-Assad’s crack-down on pro-democracy activistswho have been trying to topplehis government for more thanfive months.

Political and human rightscampaigners said that largecrowds demonstrated in severalcities and towns across the coun-try after noon prayers, and thatsecurity forces fired live ammu-nition at them, killing at least 10protesters, including a 15-year-old in the northern province ofIdlib and a 19-year-old in the east-ern city of Deir al-Zour.

Activists also said that at leasteight soldiers were killed in al-Kiswah and Zabadani, two sub-urbs of Damascus, the capital, forrefusing to fire at protesters. De-fections among low-level soldiershave increased in the past couple

of weeks but have yet to threatenthe unity of the army. Many ofthose who desert their positionsin the mostly Sunni rank-and-filearmy are either arrested, killedor simply drop out of sight, resi-dents have reported.

Friday’s demonstrations werean outcry for the internationalcommunity to interfere on behalfof Syrians, who face the wrath oftroops and armed men in plainclothes loyal to Mr. Assad on adaily basis.

Activists say that many Syri-ans are growing more and morefrustrated as they are realizingthat street demonstrations alonemight not lead to the toppling ofthe government without the helpof foreign powers.

Posters and banners heldacross the country on Fridayread “The Syrian people demandinternational protection for civil-ians,” and “After all these killingsand assaults, where is interna-tional protection?” Many

chanted, “The people want theexecution of the president.”

“We know this is a sensitiveslogan — to ask America and Eu-rope to protect us from our broth-ers in the country — but what canwe do?” said a political activist inDamascus who spoke on the con-dition of anonymity. “We haveentered the sixth month andthere is no hope that the Assadregime will stop the killings andarrests.”

Activists said that the numberof Syrians who would welcomeforeign involvement against theleadership has greatly increasedin the past month, encouraged bythe fall of Col. Muammar el-Qad-dafi in Libya, whose governmentfell with the help of foreign mil-itary assistance.

The United States and Euro-pean countries have imposed aseries of economic sanctions onSyria that singled out top officialsand government institutions, andmany have called on Mr. Assad to

step down, but a military inter-vention similar to the NATObombing of Libya has not beenseriously considered.

Even Syria’s closest ally, Iran,has called on its leadership to endthe crackdown and hold talkswith the opposition, in surprisingcomments delivered this week byPresident Mahmoud Ahmadine-jad, which signaled growing un-ease with the unrest there.

Iran crushed its own pro-de-mocracy protesters in 2009 afterMr. Ahmadinejad was re-electedto a second term in office.

“I can say that half of the Syri-an people will accept internation-al intervention to finish the blood-shed in our country,” said Hani,30, a protester from al-Midanneighborhood in Damascus. “Ithink foreign countries will havemore sympathy for us than theAssad regime.” One person waskilled in al-Midan, according tothe Local Coordination Commit-tees, a group of activists who are

involved in tracking and docu-menting the uprising.

But there remain many voicesthat are warning against foreignintervention and want the upris-ing to stay peaceful in the face ofthe government’s security meas-ures.

Residents and activists saidthat large demonstrations brokeout in Homs, a restive city nick-named by Syrians as the capitalof the revolution. Homs was raid-ed by the army and securityforces several times in the pastweek in the search for more thana dozen soldiers who defectedthere and for activists involved inplanning demonstrations. Atleast seven people were killedwhen security forces fired atdemonstrations in differentneighborhoods.

They also reported big protestsin Deir al-Zour, in the east nearthe Iraqi border, a region thatwas attacked last month; in theKurdish northeast; in Idlib, near

Turkey; and in southern Syria,near Jordan.

Activists said that at least 27 ci-vilians died in the military as-sault on Homs this past week.Human Rights Watch said thatsecurity forces forcibly removed18 wounded people from a hospi-tal in the city on Wednesday andprevented medical workers fromreaching those who were hurt inthe attack.

The crackdown on pro-democ-racy activists has killed at least2,200 people from mid-March tomid-August by the United Na-tions’ account, but other activistssay that the number now exceeds3,000 with thousands of others injails and secret detention centers.

The government of Mr. Assad,who came to power in 2000, dis-putes the numbers and says thatit is facing a foreign conspiracy todivide Syria, and that it is bat-tling foreign armed groups whohave killed more than 500 policeofficers and soldiers.

Syrian Protesters Call for International Protection From President Assad’s Crackdown

C M Y K Yxxx,2011-09-10,A,006,Bs-BK,E2

named Greenland, have sprouted up across Soma-lia, some little more than Web sites or so-called briefcase governments, others heavily armed, all eager for international recognition and the money that may come with it.

Officialswiththe9,000-strongAfricanUnionpeacekeeping force, the backbone of security in Mogadishu, say they are deeply concerned by this fragmentation, reminiscent of Somalia’s warlord daysafterthegovernmentcollapsedin1991.

“What was holding everybody together is now gone,” lamented anAfrican Union official, whoaskednot tobeidentifiedbecausehewasdepart-ingfromtheofficiallinethatalliswellinMogadi-shu.“AllthesepeoplewhocametogethertofighttheShababarenowstartingtofighteachother.Weweren’t prepared for this. It’s happening too fast.”

American officials are struggling to keep upwith Somalia’s rapidly evolving — or some say devolving — politics, saying they have lost faith in the transitional government’s leaders and are now open to the ideaoffinancingsome local securityforces, part of what they call a “dual track” ap-proach to supporting the national and local govern-ments at the same time.

“It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to have a local leader with some charisma and grass-roots support,” said one American official, whowas not authorized to speak publicly.

Perhaps no area better illustrates the creeping warlordism than Dhobley, a forlorn little town near the Kenyan border contested by two new militias, one led by a dapper, French-educated intellectual, the other by an Islamist sheik who used to be in league with the Shabab.

People are starving here, victims of Soma-lia’s famine, 70-pound adults and tiny babies with skin cracked like old paint. But there are few aid organizations around. They have been scared off by the hundreds of undisciplined militiamen, who constantlyfireofftheirgunsandhavekilledeachother in recent weeks.

The gunmen in solid green fatigues belong to Ahmed Madobe, the Islamist sheik-turned-warlord who just a few years ago was hunted down by American forces, wounded by shrapnel during an air raid and then spirited away to an Ethiopian prison.

“I wasn’t just in the Shabab; I helped found it,” Sheik Madobe boasted the other day, as he sat in a tentonDhobley’soutskirts,flankedbydozensofba-by-facedfighters.HesaidhehadquittheShababbe-cause “they’re killers,” though several analysts said it was a more prosaic breakup over smuggling fees.

Also prowling around Dhobley, between crum-bling buildings and stinking piles of animal car-casses from the drought, are hundreds of gunmen incamouflagefightingforanotherman,knownasthe Professor.

Mohamed Abdi Mohamed, better known as Professor Gandhi, is a former university lecturer who says he holds two French Ph.D.’s — in ge-ology and anthropology. He has formed his own state, Azania, complete with two houses of repre-

A6 Ø Y INTERNATIONALTHE NEW YORK TIMES SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2011

































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sentatives and special seats for women, though he is not actually in Dhobley and seems to spend a lot of time in Kenya.

“Let’s just say Madobe and I have different values,” Professor Gandhi said from the tearoom of a fancy hotel in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, where he was wearing gold-rimmed glasses and a stylish thick cotton blazer.

Professor Gandhi’s and Sheik Madobe’s forces, workingsimultaneouslythoughnotquitetogether,recently pushed the Shabab out of a few towns along the Kenyan border. The Kenyan military has been backing them up, and according to American diplomatic cables, the Chinese government gave Kenya weapons and uniforms for the Somali mi-litiamen, possibly because there is oil in southern Somalia that the Chinese covet.

A similar situation is unfolding near the Ethio-pian border, where an Ethiopian-backed militia has defeated Shabab forces and established a narrow zone of control. In central Somalia, another mili-tia, Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama’a, which also receives Ethiopian weapons, has seized several towns from the Shabab as well.

The Shabab seem to be undercut by internal fissures,thoughtheystillhavethousandsoffight-ers. Several leaders, including Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, have recently been killed, and the Shabab’s policy of blocking Western food aid at a time of famine has meant that hundreds of thou-sandsofpeoplehavefledtheirterritory,depletingthe militants’ resources and depriving them of re-cruits. Those who remain are often too poor to tax or too sick to soldier.

In August, the Shabab announced they were pullingoutofMogadishuforthefirsttimeinyears,thoughsomefightersapparentlystayedbehind toterrorize the population and behead more than a dozen people.

The new anti-Shabab forces have differing re-lationships with the transitional government. Sheik Madobe says he is willing to work with transitional leaders; Professor Gandhi dismissed them as a lost cause. But even the local administrations margin-ally aligned with the government say they do not get much help from Mogadishu and now want to break away.

“Separation, that’s our dream,” said Abdirashid HassanAbdinur,alocalofficialinDolo,neartheEthiopian border. As for a name, he said they were still working on that. “All I can say is that we’ll pick it here, not at some foreign hotel.”

VOL. CLX . . . No. 55,524 © 2011 The New York Times SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2011

U(DF463D)X+@!/!.!=!#

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

WASHINGTON — Armed withworrisome poll data and seekingto maintain the legislative upperhand, Congressional Republicanswho have spent the balance ofthe year pouring buckets of crit-icism on the Obama administra-tion are shifting to a more re-strained approach as they ponderhow to respond to the president’sjobs plan.

Back from a summer break intheir districts — where theyfaced constituents howling aboutWashington bickering and intran-sigence — Republicans on Fridayleft the door open to several ele-ments of the president’s $447 bil-lion jobs package of tax cuts andspending programs, even thosethat just five weeks ago were metwith vehement opposition.

The abrupt change in tone andsubstance after months of sear-ing budget fights that turned off awatching public suggested thatRepublicans on Capitol Hill wereanxious about entering the 2012races with a reputation more forconfrontation than compromise.

“People expect results, andthey’re very frustrated that theyare not seeing that coming out ofWashington,” RepresentativeCharles Boustany Jr., Republicanof Louisiana, said in an interview.“That implies that we have tohave some compromise, somearea where we agree that we’regoing to move things forward forthe better.”

Speaker John A. Boehner andRepresentative Eric Cantor ofVirginia are also taking a moreconciliatory approach than inprevious fiscal battles, when bothmen essentially declared war onthe administration’s policies. “Weare going to work together,” Mr.Cantor said, adding, “I think it’stime to build consensus here.”

On Friday, the two leaders sentan exceedingly polite letter to Mr.Obama asking that he send anybills containing his jobs plans tothe Congressional Budget Officeso that their costs can be evaluat-ed. “It is our desire to work to-gether to find common groundbetween your ideas and ours,”the letter read, in a significantswitch from a few weeks ago,

G.O.P. IS CAUTIOUSIN JOBS RESPONSE

Constituents’ Anger Feltas Elections Near


By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

DHOBLEY, Somalia — AdanDahir Hassan sits in a bald office,wires dangling from the ceiling,handing out death sentences. Re-cently installed by an Islamistwarlord, Mr. Hassan recalledhow he had ordered a soldier whohad killed a civilian, possibly byaccident, to be delivered to thevictim’s family, which promptlyshot him in the head.

“It’s Islamic law,” said Mr.Hassan, the professed district

commissioner of this bullet-rid-dled town. “That’s what makesthe community feel happy.”

For the first time in years, theShabab Islamist group that haslong tormented Somalis is reced-ing from several areas at once,including this one, handing theTransitional Federal Governmentan enormous opportunity to fi-nally step outside the capital andbegin uniting this fractious coun-try after two decades of war.

Instead, a messy, violent, clan-nish scramble is emerging over

who will take control. This is exactly what the United

States and other donors hadhoped to avoid by investing mil-lions of dollars in the transitionalgovernment, viewing it as thebest antidote to Somalia’s chron-ic instability and a bulwarkagainst Islamic extremism.

But the government is tooweak, corrupt, divided and disor-ganized to mount a claim beyondMogadishu, the capital, leavingclan warlords, Islamist militias

SVEN TORFINN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Militiamen under Sheik Ahmed Madobe are vying for control of Dhobley, a town in Somalia.



By THOMAS KAPLAN and KATE TAYLOR

Panicked Democrats are re-leasing a barrage of negativetelevision advertising, turning tothe national party for a cash infu-sion and pleading with PresidentObama’s network of supportersfor help as they confront whatseemed impossible two monthsago: defeat in the heavily Demo-cratic House district last repre-sented by Anthony D. Weiner.

Party leaders say the presi-dent’s flagging popularity anddefections among Jewish votershave left them facing the embar-rassing possibility that their can-didate, Assemblyman David I.Weprin, could lose New York’sNinth Congressional District to alittle-known Republican busi-nessman who has never heldelected office.

A new poll released on Fridayshowed Bob Turner, the Repub-

lican, with a six-point lead overMr. Weprin. The election is onTuesday, and even though law-makers have discussed eliminat-ing the district in redistrictingnext year, the race has becomesymbolically important as an in-dication of how much Mr. Oba-ma’s unpopularity might affectother Democratic candidates.

“This has been a difficult cam-paign, and this campaign has hadsome major operational prob-lems,” said Assemblyman Vito J.Lopez, chairman of the BrooklynDemocratic Party.

Mr. Lopez said that he expect-ed Mr. Weprin to win, but that thecampaign needed to becomemuch more aggressive in the fi-nal days.

Steven A. Greenberg, a pollster

Fearing Loss of a House Seat,Democrats Make a Late Push


By MOTOKO RICH

The dismal state of the econ-omy is the main reason manycompanies are reluctant to hireworkers, and few executives aresaying that President Obama’sjobs plan — while welcome — willchange their minds any timesoon.

That sentiment was echoedacross numerous industries byexecutives in companies big andsmall on Friday, underscoringthe challenge for the Obama ad-ministration as it tries to encour-age hiring and perk up the mori-bund economy.

The plan failed to generate anyoptimism on Wall Street as theStandard & Poor’s 500-stock in-dex and the Dow Jones industrialaverage each fell about 2.7 per-cent. [Page B6.]

As President Obama faced anuphill battle in Congress to winsupport even for portions of theplan, many employers dismissedthe notion that any particular taxbreak or incentive would be per-suasive. Instead, they said theytended to hire more workers orexpand when the economy im-proved.

Companies are focused on jit-tery consumer confidence, an un-stable stock market, perceivedobstacles to business expansionlike government regulation and,above all, swings in demand fortheir products.

“You still need to have thebusiness need to hire,” said Jef-fery Braverman, owner of Nuts-online, an e-commerce companyin Cranford, N.J., that sells nutsand dried fruit. While a $4,000credit could offset the cost of thecompany’s lowest-cost health in-surance plan, he said, it wouldnot spur him to hire someone.“Business demand is what driveshiring,” he said.

Indeed, the industries that arehiring workers now — like tech-nology and energy — are thosewhere business is strong, in con-

trast to the overall economy. Ad-ministration officials and someeconomists, of course, say theybelieve the president’s plan, ifadopted, could help increase de-mand more broadly. The pro-posed payroll tax cuts for individ-uals should spur consumerspending and in turn, promptcompanies to hire more people.

But the plan also includes in-centives for companies to hiremore workers, including a pay-roll tax cut for businesses and a$4,000 tax credit for those em-ployers that hire people whohave been out of work for sixmonths or more.

To the extent these measurescould be used, many employerssaid they would most likely sup-port people whom companieswere planning to hire anyway.

Chesapeake Energy, one of thebiggest explorers of oil and gas inshale fields across the country,for example, said it had 800 posi-

Employers Say Jobs PlanWon’t Lead to Hiring Spur

Health of Overall Economy and DemandAre Cited as Forceful Deterrents


CHANG W. LEE/THE NEW YORK TIMES

New York was already on alert for this weekend’s memorial of the Sept. 11 attacks, but amid reports of a bomb plot, security effortswere escalated around the city, including on Wall Street near the New York Stock Exchange, as well as in Washington. Page A8.

On Guard for Anniversary

By DAMIEN CAVE

COBÁN, Guatemala — Theyburned villages, killed childrenand, just a winding road awayfrom here in 1982, the Guatema-lan military also massacred hun-dreds of Mayan peasants, aftertorturing old men and rapingyoung women.

But now, all across these high-lands once ravaged by a 36-yearcivil war, the region’s bloodiestanti-Communist conflict, Guate-malans are demanding the un-thinkable — a strong military,back in their communities.

That is how desperate thiscountry has become as gangsand Mexican drug cartels run fe-ver-wild, capturing territory andcorrupting institutions so thatGuatemala will remain a safe ha-ven for cocaine, guns, moneylaundering and new recruits.

“It’s even scarier now thanduring the war,” said JosefinaMolina, 52, making tamales a fewsteps from where a neighbor waskilled two days earlier. “The dan-ger used to be in the mountains— now it’s everywhere.”

Guatemala’s presidential elec-tion on Sunday could represent aturning point. The three top con-tenders have all called for astronger, crime-fighting military,

borrowing heavily from the Mex-ican model of attacking the drugcartels head-on, even though thatstrategy has claimed more than40,000 lives without yieldingpeace.

The front-runner is consideredto be Otto Pérez Molina, a formergeneral whose campaign symbolis an iron fist. Reserved and intel-lectual, he both commandedtroops during the worst atrocitiesof the war and negotiated the1996 peace accords that ended it.

“He knows the strategies forfighting,” said Fábio DagobertoMiza, a campaign leader.

But the question playing on re-peat is whether the next govern-

ment will get tough without vio-lating human rights.

“For many, there is a sensethat the military is going to putthings in order,” said RaquelZelaya, executive director of AsíEs, a research group. And yet,she and others added, what ifthat faith is misplaced?

“The notion that the military isthe ‘deus ex machina’ that’s go-ing to resolve everything” doesnot recognize that the military“may also be part of the prob-lem,” said Cynthia Arnson, an ex-pert at Woodrow Wilson Interna-tional Center for Scholars.

Here in Cobán, a coffee town in

Desperate Guatemalans Embrace an ‘Iron Fist’


By DAN FROSCH and JANET ROBERTS

DENVER — This summer, anExxon Mobil pipeline carrying oilacross Montana burst suddenly,soiling the swollen YellowstoneRiver with an estimated 42,000gallons of crude just weeks aftera company inspection and federalreview had found nothing seri-ously wrong.

And in the Midwest, a 35-milestretch of the Kalamazoo Rivernear Marshall, Mich., once teem-ing with swimmers and boaters,remains closed nearly 14 monthsafter an Enbridge Energy pipe-line hemorrhaged 843,000 gallonsof oil that will cost more than$500 million to clean up.

While investigators have yet todetermine the cause of either ac-cident, the spills have drawn at-tention to oversight of the 167,000-mile system of hazardous liquidpipelines crisscrossing the na-tion.

The little-known federal agen-cy charged with monitoring thesystem and enforcing safety

Pipeline SpillsPut SafeguardsUnder Scrutiny


Thousands of people tore down a pro-tective wall around the Israeli Embassy,and set a fire near the grounds, whileothers defaced the headquarters of theEgyptian Interior Ministry. PAGE A4

INTERNATIONAL A4-7

Crowd Attacks Cairo Buildings

Families of people killed in the crash ofFlight 93 in Shanksville, Pa., will have aprivate service to bury the unidentifiedremains of the victims. PAGE A8

NATIONAL A8-14

Laying Victims to Rest, QuietlyThe final two American men were elimi-nated from the United States Open inthe quarterfinals: Andy Roddick, below,by Rafael Nadal, and John Isner byAndy Murray. PAGE B8

SPORTSSATURDAY B8-12

Last American Men Are Out

A central banker’s resignation height-ened concern over Greek debt. PAGE B1

BUSINESS DAY B1-7

Widening Discord in Europe

The stars of Man-chester United. Ja-son Lee cleans up.Nile Rodgers re-calls his childhood.

T STYLES

THIS WEEKEND

The Fall Men’sFashion Issue

Gail Collins PAGE A19

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A18-19

Many New Yorkers say they will sit outthe public events marking the 10th anni-versary of the Sept. 11 attacks. PAGE A15

NEW YORK A15-16

Staying Away From 9/11

Human error may be to blame for apower failure that affected more thansix million people in the West. PAGE A14

Casting Light on a Blackout

Sept. 11 exhibitions vary greatly inscope and effect, from raw data, to docu-mentarylike evidence, to art. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-8

Different Ways to Remember

The first collections head down the run-ways as the shows begin. A fashion re-view by Cathy Horyn. PAGE A20

FASHION A20

New York Fashion Week

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as an enemy retreats, clans carve up somalia as ... - pulitzer

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