RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
And now for an update on the troubles in a country in Africa. Somalia hasn't had a functioning government since 1991. This week a powerless transitional government collapsed completely. Radical Islamist fighters overran the seat of government in the town of Baidoa. Leaders of the ousted government are now in exile in the neighboring country of Djibouti. If they want to return to Somalia, chances are they'll have to fight their way in. NPR's Gwen Thompkins reports.
GWEN THOMPKINS: The Six Eighty hotel is known throughout Nairobi as a kind of Casablanca for Somalis. This is where political exiles, intellectuals, and opportunists hang out all day, every day. Some are waiting for papers that would allow them to stay in Kenya. Others are waiting for visas to go someplace else. Most are waiting for a cup of tea.
The cafe here is decorated safari style. Animals are painted on the walls - elephants, crocodiles, zebras, a cheater, a hyena, and a lion. The predators and the prey don't face each other, their eyes never meet, but the message is clear. It's a jungle out there, and life has every potential of being brutal and surprisingly short. This seems as good a time as any to talk about Somalia's transitional federal government, which the people here call the TFG.
Mr. MUSA JAMA (Somali Textile Trader): The TFG has collapsed.
THOMPKINS: That's Musa Jama, a Somali textile trader with ties to the last president of Somalia's transitional federal government. Two years ago, then President Abdullahi Yusuf arrived in the Somali capital of Mogadishu triumphant, courtesy of the Ethiopian army. The Ethiopians had broken an Islamist movement that briefly controlled Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia. But today nearly all of the government's territory is in the hands of radical Islamist insurgents called al-Shabab.
The Ethiopians have pulled out, Yusuf is gone, and the leaders of what remains of the government are now in Djibouti. They plan to choose a new president in the coming days. Jama says he's not optimistic. Ali Said Omar directs the Center for Peace and Democracy in south-central Somalia.
Mr. ALI SAID OMAR (Director, Center for Peace and Democracy, Somalia): I think the Somalis are all waiting what can come out from Djibouti. That's the only hope we have now. And if that fails, it's like Shabab will rule Somalia.
THOMPKINS: Ali Said Omar says he left Mogadishu for good last year when he got caught in gunfire outside a Mosque. If the insurgency has taught the world anything, he says, it's that Islamist leadership in Somalia is a sign of the times. After all, Somalia is a Muslim nation and there's been a popular Islamist movement toward a more conservative read of the Koran. Islamists credit themselves with getting the unpopular Ethiopian army to quit Somalia, and that's probably why Somalia's internationally backed government is reinventing itself.
In Djibouti, government leaders have nearly doubled the size of their parliament to include moderate Islamists. And Sheikh Sharif Ahmed is a moderate who is now favored to become the next president. But Ali says whether any moderate can lead all the disparate clans of Somalia is as yet unclear.
Mr. OMAR: Many things will depend on the first message that president releases. If it becomes a message of unity, message of hope, like Obama did in America, you know, if it becomes like that message, then everybody will say we need a government.
THOMPKINS: And yet muscling back into Somalia may prove impossible. The government has al-Shabab to contend with, a group the U.S. says has ties to al-Qaeda. But the Shabab reportedly have their own problems. There is said to be dissension in the ranks, as not all who fight say they are properly compensated. And Ali says there simply aren't enough Shabab fighters to govern all of Somalia. In most of the places they conquer, the militia leaves only a few fellows around to collect money from local businesses.
Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah is the United Nations special representative for Somalia. Speaking recently from a nearby hotel, he said the Shabab don't know how to live in peace, but he also said there are many other groups doing battle in Somalia.
Mr. AHMEDOU OULD-ABDALLAH (United Nations Special Representative for Somalia): The violence we have now in Somalia, what violence is it? Is it political? Is it religious? Is it business? Because the conflict has been so long, it is very difficult to pin.
THOMPKINS: What's more, there's no guarantee that any group will ever take the biggest prize of all, Mogadishu. Somalia's capital is dominated by powerful clans that have their own militias. Moderate Islamists also keep fighters there. And Mogadishu's big business owners, like those who run the nation's multimillion-dollar telecommunications and money transfer industries, employ hired guns. It's a tough place. Most who have tried to take Mogadishu in the past have learned the hard way what the walls of the Six Eighty hotel in Nairobi say in animal pictures - that life has every potential of being brutal and surprisingly short. Gwen Thompkins, NPR News, Nairobi.