The World's Most Dangerous Place Read Online Free Page A
Author: James Fergusson
point and shoot my camera, and I am struck once again by a surreal film set feeling. Some of the men, in their aviator sunglasses and decorated helmets, look so astonishingly like extras in a Vietnam war movie that I think they must consciously be emulating Hollywood. Yet there is no doubt what generation they actually belong to when one of them nods and grins and says in a near flawless American accent, ‘How ya doin’, man? Are you on Facebook? I’ll catch you later on YouTube.’
The troops are thickly spread, with most of them up on the fire step with weapons trained and ready to shoot. Mugarura explains that dhuhr , the noon prayer, is almost over, and that although al-Shabaab’s main sorties tend to be at night, they are also reliably aggressive after each of their five daily prayers. As if on cue, an AMISOM rifle starts firing rapidly a little way down to our left. The troops in our section all swing their weapons in the same direction, and the air suddenly explodes with gunfire. We crouch and wait. The shooting only lasts for a minute, and when it has died down we make our way along to the source.
The rifleman who started it is bristling like a pointer dog through his tiny gun slit. Mugarura scuttles forward and conferswith him, their voices low. He peers briefly through the hole and then signals for me to crawl up and take his place.
‘Green door, straight ahead,’ he breathes. ‘You want to look? Be quick.’
I inch my head into position and immediately locate a green, lean-to cellar door. It is scarily close: 50 yards at the most.
‘He saw the door moving,’ Mugarura murmurs, leaning back comfortably on some rubble. ‘He has been watching it for hours. The enemy are dug into the basements all along this sector. We can hear them calling out to us at night, “Amisom! Amisom!” They sometimes throw grenades over our parapet. That is our biggest problem here, but if you keep a good eye out you can get them first.’
The colonel grins and pats the helmet of the rifleman, who smiles crookedly but doesn’t take his eye, or his weapon, off the door to his front. Mugarura says his snipers picked off two al-Shabaab fighters the night before. The night before that, however, a new arrival from Kampala failed to keep in cover while negotiating his way to a field toilet and was peremptorily shot through the head. The soldiers here are engaged in a giant game of whack-a-mole; the only difference is that, in this game, the moles can hit back.
As we loop back to our start point, the colonel leads us to the sandbagged rooftop of a three-storey building from where the medium-rise tower blocks and radio masts of the Bakara Market are just visible on the horizon about a mile ahead. The gently rising foreground is dominated by a badly damaged, ochre-tiled minaret. This is the famous Red Mosque, the burial place of an important Sufi saint, which Mugarura describes as his ‘personal’ objective, a place he hopes to overrun before summer’s end. Richard persuadesMugarura to do a short interview to camera with the Red Mosque in the background. Halfway through, however, there is a thunderous bang as a small-calibre mortar round drops in, barely a hundred yards away up the street. We turn and watch the corner of a building crumble slowly to the ground.
‘That was close,’ says Richard. ‘In fact, I’d say we’ve been spotted. In fact: Move!’
We all run from the roof into better cover – all except the colonel, who walks at his usual dignified pace. We are back in Vietnam again: the scene in Apocalypse Now where the Stetson-wearing Lt-Col Bill Kilgore announces, while under heavy fire: ‘If I say it’s safe to surf this beach, captain, then it’s safe to surf this beach!’ For Colonel Mugarura, being mortared has become routine: an everyday event on this extraordinary, nightmarish front line.
2
At the Bancroft Hotel: America’s proxy war
By Aden Adde International Airport, March 2011
Until a few years
The troops are thickly spread, with most of them up on the fire step with weapons trained and ready to shoot. Mugarura explains that dhuhr , the noon prayer, is almost over, and that although al-Shabaab’s main sorties tend to be at night, they are also reliably aggressive after each of their five daily prayers. As if on cue, an AMISOM rifle starts firing rapidly a little way down to our left. The troops in our section all swing their weapons in the same direction, and the air suddenly explodes with gunfire. We crouch and wait. The shooting only lasts for a minute, and when it has died down we make our way along to the source.
The rifleman who started it is bristling like a pointer dog through his tiny gun slit. Mugarura scuttles forward and conferswith him, their voices low. He peers briefly through the hole and then signals for me to crawl up and take his place.
‘Green door, straight ahead,’ he breathes. ‘You want to look? Be quick.’
I inch my head into position and immediately locate a green, lean-to cellar door. It is scarily close: 50 yards at the most.
‘He saw the door moving,’ Mugarura murmurs, leaning back comfortably on some rubble. ‘He has been watching it for hours. The enemy are dug into the basements all along this sector. We can hear them calling out to us at night, “Amisom! Amisom!” They sometimes throw grenades over our parapet. That is our biggest problem here, but if you keep a good eye out you can get them first.’
The colonel grins and pats the helmet of the rifleman, who smiles crookedly but doesn’t take his eye, or his weapon, off the door to his front. Mugarura says his snipers picked off two al-Shabaab fighters the night before. The night before that, however, a new arrival from Kampala failed to keep in cover while negotiating his way to a field toilet and was peremptorily shot through the head. The soldiers here are engaged in a giant game of whack-a-mole; the only difference is that, in this game, the moles can hit back.
As we loop back to our start point, the colonel leads us to the sandbagged rooftop of a three-storey building from where the medium-rise tower blocks and radio masts of the Bakara Market are just visible on the horizon about a mile ahead. The gently rising foreground is dominated by a badly damaged, ochre-tiled minaret. This is the famous Red Mosque, the burial place of an important Sufi saint, which Mugarura describes as his ‘personal’ objective, a place he hopes to overrun before summer’s end. Richard persuadesMugarura to do a short interview to camera with the Red Mosque in the background. Halfway through, however, there is a thunderous bang as a small-calibre mortar round drops in, barely a hundred yards away up the street. We turn and watch the corner of a building crumble slowly to the ground.
‘That was close,’ says Richard. ‘In fact, I’d say we’ve been spotted. In fact: Move!’
We all run from the roof into better cover – all except the colonel, who walks at his usual dignified pace. We are back in Vietnam again: the scene in Apocalypse Now where the Stetson-wearing Lt-Col Bill Kilgore announces, while under heavy fire: ‘If I say it’s safe to surf this beach, captain, then it’s safe to surf this beach!’ For Colonel Mugarura, being mortared has become routine: an everyday event on this extraordinary, nightmarish front line.
2
At the Bancroft Hotel: America’s proxy war
By Aden Adde International Airport, March 2011
Until a few years
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