Born of War (11 page)

“W
ake up!”

Omar felt the kick of a sandal. He was curled up on a rug in the corner of the house in Mogadishu. He slept with his AK-47 pulled into his chest. It still didn't have any ammunition. The gun barrel was warm from being held close to his body. He slept in the same green fatigues that Musa had given to him. He had become used to living in his checkered black-and-white turban.

“Why are you here,
Amriiki
?”

The room was crowded with nearly a dozen fellow soldiers. Only the American had the magazine with no bullets.

“To come to jihad.” Omar stretched his arms as they all started to move about. “It is the will of Allah.”

“The
Amriiki
is like that!” The little man laughed as he spoke to his comrades. “He has no people.”

It seemed that what drove the fighters was a battle of clans as much as a cause.

“Do you have people?” the man asked.

“Yes, I am Syrian. I am of the Banu Najjaad. It was a tribe of people now in Syria,” Omar answered.

“I have heard of them.” It was clear that the little man was lying.

“I am the son of Salim, who was son of Mustafaa. . . .” He began to rattle off his lineage. It was full of half-truths but it did not matter. Omar's point was to impress. As the old men wore long beards, the lineage spoke of the fighter.

“And
al-Amriiki
?” the elf of a man asked.

“Yes, and
al-Kanadi
, and
al-Somali
,” Omar boasted.

They all laughed when they heard the last list. He was American, and Canadian, and Somali.

“Yes, your people are fighters.”

“They are.”

“Maybe it is true then. You have come to our land to do jihad.”

“I will see the face of Allah.”

The other soldier, no older than Omar, had a look of amazement on his face.

He was a member of the “Army of the Youth.” Al Shabaab was a mixture of Somalis and Afghans and foreign fighters. It fought for the establishment of Sharia law, waging war against the enemies of Islam. Sometimes their enemies were defined as members of another clan within Somalia.

“You are the one who killed the Americans in Mobile?”

“Yes.” Omar was proud of his credentials.

“Where is Mobile?”

“In the South.”

“How far to New York?” the other soldier asked.

“Maybe a thousand miles?”

“Let us go!” Another soldier came into the room. He carried his rifle strapped over his shoulder and had the swagger of having served in combat. He was their new drill instructor. “You are all stupid. You will run when the first helicopter comes down.”

“Sleep is not needed,” he barked at them. Omar soon learned that he was right. Sleep was a luxury not provided in Somalia. He had his plastic bag, which he stuffed with his few clothes, and also inside was another, smaller, green bag full of corn. It would serve as his pillow. He learned quickly to sleep in the corners of rooms, to sleep while sitting up in the front seat of a truck, or while rocking back and forth in the bed of a truck. Sleep and food were to become luxuries.

They crowded outside through a tight hallway to an awaiting pickup truck. Musa stopped him as he came through the front door and pulled him aside.

“I have something for you.” Musa handed him two round cardboard-like containers. Each had some weight to it. “Look at them.”

Omar tore the tape off to find a brand-new Russian hand grenade within the tube. He pulled the tape off the other and another grenade came out.

“And this is also for you.” Musa dropped a dozen bright, brass rounds of ammunition for the AK-47 into Omar's cupped hands.

Omar recalled receiving a .22 caliber rifle one Christmas from his mother's father. His father became outraged later when he found out that gifts had been given on the Christian holiday. His grandfather didn't care.

“I will keep this at my house for you to use.” He showed Omar the closet where the rifle was kept. He put a box of bullets on the shelf just high enough that it would take an intentional effort on the grandson's part to get to them. “Any time you want to use it, just let me know.” Omar loved his grandfather although the two were poles apart. His grandfather loved Pabst Blue Ribbon and his Camel “smokes” as he called them. Often, he would tell the boy to go and get his pack. He eventually died of lung cancer.

Omar beamed at both gifts. He felt the weight of the hand grenades as he put one into each of the pockets of his green jacket. He stuck the bullets into his right pocket as well as on top of one of the grenades.

“Faud is very pleased with you. Your broadcasts have been a success.”

“Allah be praised.”

“But you must learn how to be a fighter!”

Omar was ready to learn the trade.

“I will not see you for some time. We will get you to a computer once in a while to send other videos. But they must see you are truly on your jihad!”

The truck was fully loaded. Omar had to feel for an open spot in the bed near the cab. They all sat on crates with their legs hung over the sides. They moved in the darkness without lights so as to get outside the city without being spotted. He could tell that they were moving both south and inland. A sign said A
FGOOYE
.

The driver drove as fast as he could until they came to a rough part of the road. Omar soon fell back to sleep with his neck braced up against the back glass of the cab. Once, his head slammed against the glass, causing his ear to ring. He looked up to see several soldiers standing beside the road behind a burned-out shell of a truck. He could hear them chatter at each other, both the truck driver and the leader of the guard post, and realized from the broken words that they were seeking payment to pass. The driver laughed at the head guard and then drove on. The tollbooth was for those less armed than the well-gunned truck.

The road required the truck to often swing hard to the left or right to pass craters left by the American bombers. In the darkness, Omar heard a buzzing noise above and in the distance.

“What is that?”

Another soldier sitting next to him spoke some English.

“Predator.”

The aircraft that he had seen only a short time before in Djibouti was now on the hunt for him.

 

 

The truck traveled across the countryside at its slow pace until midday. It would wander off the road, and as it did, the truck would brush by the trees and growth that choked off the narrow route. The men on one side or the other would let out moans when the truck went too far off the road. Many did not have pants or shoes. Most wore sandals and long, olive-colored cotton shorts, and the thorns would tear up their legs.

There was no water to be had. A dark cloud passed by and as it did rain started to fall. Omar took one of his plastic bags and cupped it over his hands trying to catch the droplets. After a while, enough water accumulated in the plastic bag that he drank a mouthful.

They often ran into large pools of water and mud that covered the entire width of the road. Some were so deep that the men all got out, with the red-tinted water up to their waists, and pushed the truck forward. One time the pool consumed so much of the roadway that they all got out, pulled two axes from the cab, and cut a path through the brush, thorns, and trees so as to bypass the water. Another time, the river was so flooded that they dragged logs from a mile away and lashed them to the sides of the truck to better help it float across. Transportation was a constant battle.

The journey took them through the backcountry and then towards the ocean. Finally, at a house near the coastal town of Baraawe, the truck came to a stop. They were close enough to the ocean that if they were all silent, they could hear the waves in the background.

Praised be Allah.
Omar had had little to drink and eat. He felt his jacket to make sure that the hand grenades were still there. The bullets were also in his pocket.

A tall Somali came out from the house.

“I am your trainer.” The man looked as if he were not inclined to be a friend. “Your fellow soldiers are inside. Go find yourself a place.”

Omar went into the main room only to find it filled with men leaning up against all of the walls. He passed to another room.

“Allah be praised.” Omar saw in the corner an empty space, and next to the space was another white man. “I know you from Toronto!”

“Yes, brother!”

They hugged and patted each other on the back. The man was the son of one of his customers on the milk route. He was originally from Minneapolis. They always had given him a small tip when the Canadian weather was at its worst.

“So, I have heard of you.” The fellow American sat down, moving his bag to make space for Omar.

“Tell me all.” Omar put his sack up against the wall.

“My father says you are famous. You have become the face of Al Shabaab.”

“It is the path that Allah has directed me to. So how is your family?”

“Do you recall the young man that lived in the hallway with us?”

“Yes. The skinny one with the scar on his face.”

“He has become martyred.”

“Oh?” Omar had heard the phrase more and more often as he had traveled with his fellow soldiers to Baraawe.

“He blew up a jeep full of Americans. They were near the border with Ethiopia.”

“What?”

“They were military advisors. CIA.”

When in doubt, any American killed was a member of the CIA.

“He will see the face of Allah.” Omar slid his jacket pockets to the side so as to not sit on the grenades. “I am so thirsty.”

“Don't complain. No complaints to the tall one. Our trainer is far worse to those who complain. He will tell you to steal a boat and go back to the West.”

Omar put the rifle on his lap. He pulled the magazine out and for the first time had the chance to load the magazine.

“You have bullets?”

“Yes.”

“Here, give me half of them and I will let you have half of my milk.” The fellow American pulled out a plastic jug.

“Milk?”

“Fresh from the market!”

Omar gave him five rounds and drank the warm camel's milk from the jug. It had an oily taste to it as if the jug had been used before to carry something else. He didn't care. It hurt him to stop drinking at just half of the jug.

“What are those women doing?” Omar watched as half a dozen women, both girls and older women, climbed the stairway of the building. It was made of thick clay walls, with large openings for doors and windows, and had a central stairway to a second floor. From the second floor, a third stairway went to a partially covered roof.

“If the Americans see women, the Predators will not strike.”

“Really?” Omar was learning the lessons of war.

“If it is an MSF camp, they will leave it alone.” The man took the jug back and drank from it. “So, we put up flags and sometimes tents.”

“MSF.”

“Doctors Without Borders. A cover for the CIA.” The American didn't know what he was talking about. MSF tried to stay as far away from governments as possible. But for Al Shabaab it didn't matter. If the soldiers believed it was a CIA plot, then it was a CIA plot.

“Tomorrow we go back to the beach.”

“The beach?” Omar didn't understand.

“The trainer loves to run us through the beach.”

“Through?”

“Yes, you will see.”

 

 

The American from Minneapolis was right.

The trainer was sadistic. He had a thin stick, like a whip, which he used to slap the new ones. Often he would hit them across the face, causing welts to rise. The theory was universal. Boot camp would be so miserable that combat would seem to be a vacation. He wanted to see who would run when the first shot was fired. And if they ran, it was better to remove them now.

“Dig.”

He pointed his stick to a soft sandy part of the beach. The recruits were lined up in a row and each dug, with his hands, a hole the shape of a burial plot. The sand burned Omar as he dug and dug.

“Now get in.”

Each climbed into his hole lying down on his back.

The trainer then walked from hole to hole, putting his sandaled foot on each trainee's stomach. If the recruit let out a yelp, he struck him across the face with his stick. Later, he brought them into an alley where he had broken bottles into fine shards of glass.

“Now, do push-ups!”

Their hands bled and they cried out in pain.

“No complaints!”

“This is stupid,” Omar mumbled. He knew better than to speak so that the words could be heard.

The day was brutal. At noon, they were allowed to drink water from a twenty-liter jug. It had a red tint to it. Omar swallowed the water in large gulps without caring about the color. The water, like the American's camel milk, had the taste and feel of oil residue. It seemed that the jugs had also been used for cooking oil. The water was far from clean. Omar quickly became sick and had to be carried by two of the recruits back to the house.

He dragged himself outside to the thorny bushes nearby and shook while everything passed through him. While huddled on the ground in the fetal position, Omar thought of the winters back in Toronto. It was such an opposite world.

The next day, the local commander visited the encampment. He was seen shaking his fist at the trainer. Two others with him found Omar huddled in the corner. They gave him bottled water to drink and bananas.