(Photo: M . Qanyare Afrah) Somalia has been a failed state since 1991. The security think tank Fund for Peace puts Somalia at the top of its Failed States Index, and the Ibrahim Index of African Governance ranks Somalia as Africa's biggest failure. Emily Meehan recently spent four months in Kenya and Somalia. NAIROBI, Kenya—If you search for "Somalia parliament chair fight" on YouTube, you will find a shocking video. In the clip, old men in suits shout and beat each other with chairs. In one astonishing sequence, two men observe the fracas, turn to look at each other, pick up chairs in unison, and start slamming another man on the head. The way you react to this video is likely the way you would feel if you met Mohamed Qanyare Afrah. He's a former warlord and a member of Somalia's transitional parliament. He ran for president in 2004 and came in third. He plans to run again next year when the current transitional charter runs out. We meet on the patio of Nairobi's Grand Regency hotel. Qanyare—graying, jocular, handsome in a navy-blue suit and red-and-white tie—remembers the day with a smile. "I was in there!" he boasts. Qanyare says the fight was over President Abdullahi Yusuf's decision to invite Ethiopian troops to overthrow the Islamic Courts Union in Mogadishu, Somalia's capital. Qanyare lives in Nairobi because the Islamists overthrew the warlords two years ago, and he fled. But he's not satisfied with the Ethiopian troops that then broke up the Islamist government, and like most Somalis, he wants the Ethiopians to leave. As far as Mohamed Qanyare is concerned, the only acceptable leader of Somalia is Mohamed Qanyare. Until he gets the job, he will contribute nothing to Somalia's nominal government. "It's not functioning. It's nothing," he says of the parliament. The European Union doesn't pay MPs enough, he adds, only $1,100 a month. The parliament is supposed to be meeting in Baidoa, Somalia, when Qanyare and I are talking in Nairobi. Very few people know what a warlord is. Qanyare doesn't call himself one; his preferred term is faction leader. His faction was Murusade, a family, or subclan, of south Somalia's powerful ****** clan. With a lucrative transportation business that moves cargo across Africa, the 67-year-old is also a wealthy businessman. He launched the company in the 1970s while living in exile from Siad Barre's regime. The "war" in warlord was Qanyare's competition with other armed faction leaders for control of Mogadishu. Their rivalry was born in the power vacuum after Barre's deposition in 1991. The anarchy that resulted from this competition prevented Somalia from becoming a functioning state for 15 years. From the mid-1990s until 2006, Qanyare led a militia of about 2,000 young Murusade men. He controlled an airstrip that aid agencies and khat dealers used to import their material from Kenya. He controlled an area of Mogadishu. He had a lot of weapons, makeshift tanks, and money. "It was not a cool atmosphere politically, but that was between me and the other faction leaders. Anyone who tells you my militia was killing innocent people or making roadblocks, they must be cheating you," says Qanyare defiantly. Like feudal lords, warlords in Africa are known for taxing people living in their zones, and their soldiers, usually teenagers, are known for setting up roadblocks and charging people to pass. "I only defended myself," says Qanyare. He was also defending his airport, which brought in $100,000 a month, he says. His fundamental objective? "Ever since I returned to Somalia in 1991, I have been a political man," he says over a fourth cup of chai tea. "I used to be a businessman, now I have only one goal." That goal is to be president. "I am the man who told the United States there was al-Qaida in Somalia," says Qanyare. "They could not believe!" Eventually, they did believe. After 9/11, the CIA recruited Qanyare and other warlords to hunt down radical clerics and send them off for interrogation at a U.S. base in Djibouti. As an aspiring president, Qanyare had his own reasons for resisting Islamist revolution. In 2006, the warlords announced that they had forged an alliance: the CIA-funded Alliance for Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism. The irony of warlords running a peace alliance was not lost on Somalis. Qanyare says the CIA didn't pay him. Somali journalists say he was vastly enriched with cash deliveries. The counterterrorism tactic was controversial, and U.S. diplomat Michael Zorick was transferred from his post in Nairobi as a punishment for speaking out against it. Zorick later won a "constructive dissent" prize from the American Foreign Service Organization. Somalis were horrified by the alliance, and many now consider the United States their No. 2 enemy after Ethiopia. "One thing people know is the warlords are the worst people in Somalia, and the Americans are helping the worst people," Somali politician Mohamud Uluso told me. Ask ordinary Somalis about Qanyare, and without fail, the first thing anyone who lived in Mogadishu back then will say is that he kidnapped innocent Muslim clerics to make money from the CIA. "Warlords were all kidnapping Muslim scholars and flying them out of Somalia systematically, and Mohamed Qanyare had his airport," says Hassan Mohamed, a 29-year-old who grew up in Qanyare's Mogadishu territory. Qanyare says he wasn't very successful at catching terrorists, and his militia caught only one, by accident. He says the man he caught and flew out to Djibouti killed two British schoolteachers in Somaliland. Somaliland's former interior minister, Ismael Adam Osman, says the man who killed Richard and Enid Eyeington in 2003 was caught in Mogadishu and handed over to the CIA in Djibouti, but Osman doesn't know how he was caught. Mohamed Ali Isey currently awaits the death penalty in a Somaliland prison. Qanyare's cooperation with the United States was a symptom of his unusual American bias. "Some people, they believe all roads lead to Rome," he says of elders who worshipped Italy, Somalia's former colonizer. "Me? I think all roads lead to Washington." On the topic of Islamist governance, he looks disgusted. "I'm a secularist," he says. "I'm not the person sent from God to regulate the peoples' religions. We must have a multiparty democracy." Qanyare is a Muslim. He wakes up every morning at 5 a.m. to pray—and to watch CNN. Since 2006, Qanyare's relationship with the United States seems to have deteriorated, and he's angry that Washington accepts the Ethiopian occupation arranged by President Yusuf. "America is the sick person," he says, referring to 9/11 and the U.S. Embassy bombings. "They wanted to see the physician, and they are using a witch doctor—Yusuf and Ethiopia. I used to give my advice to the CIA. But I think nobody cares about American taxpayers. Now everything is bad there [in Somalia]." The people fighting Ethiopians in Somalia have a right to do so, says Qanyare, expressing a sentiment echoed by most Somalis. "They have a right to jihad with Ethiopia, because Ethiopia invaded a sovereign country." Our meeting is wrapping up, and several demure Somali ladies are waiting for Qanyare in the hotel lobby. "Is one of those women your wife?" I ask him. "I don't know those ladies—I think they want my money," he says, dismissing them with a harassed wave. If Qanyare is elected president, he will move back to Mogadishu. It's not in the state it was when he left in 2006. That was anarchy. Today it's compared to Baghdad. Is he scared to go back? "My dear," says Qanyare, "I only fear God."

You know how people ask sometimes “What would you do if you had a million dollars”? or “What would you do if you were president”? If I had a million dollars I’d become a president. Hell ya! No seriously though, that is what this new series is about. If I was president, what would I do? For starters less set some background on our country. I am the president of the newly created Peoples Republic of Somalia (PPS) after a dynamic people’s revolution. The PPS is the rebirth of a nation once called the Somali Republic after it committed political and cultural suicide. And as the new sun’s light begins to shine on the young nation the future looks dark. Can we battle the environment devastation we have racked upon ourselves? Can we keep the peace or will we return to continue the 18 year long civil war? Can this small and poor nation stands its own against the elements of globalization and the political interest of the United States with its War of Terror? Can we show the World that Africa is not the Dark Continent? Si!, Se Puede (Yes! , It Can Be Done). So lets start with some major and simple legislation. Somalia will be formally divided into the following states; Northland State, Puntland, Maakhir, Galmudug, Shabelle, Jubaland, Somaliland, ******, and Dijoubiti. Each state shall have a governor and be given autonomy in its own affairs as long as they meet the standard of the national law. The government shall be divided up accordingly; president shall be in charge of all international issues and most pass all national legislation, the prime minister is head of government selects the cabinet, the governor general is ambassador of the state leaders and is speaker of the house. Presidential Decrees are laws passed and presented in the General Laws of the Nation Presidential Decree Number 1: Tribalism No law or legislation shall be made with consideration of tribes. It shall be illegal and punishable by law to ask or tell what tribe ones is in or is from. Any decision made due to tribalism will be considered an act of prejudices; which is directly prohibited by Article 1 of the Charter of Rights. Presidential Decree Number 2: Copyright Law In order to rise the nation, international copyright laws will be directly implemented. A person can build/ sell (but not resell) any product with a copyright inside the Peoples Republic of Somalia but may not export it another country. All this follow this except for machinery, medicine, and computer (Information Technology) for which Variation Principle exist. The Variation Principle is attribute to the implementation of Appropriate Technology. One may redesign the car and computer to better fit the needs of the Somali people and sell that outside the country to expand market. By: Mr. Dreamer

Originally posted by Caano Geel: come on people, some one must know something here, jaceylabro, your in somalia, any papers that you can recommend? Caano geel, bad ha i gelin niyow, i'm not in Somalia, i'm in Somaliland. Here is the information you need from Somaliland: Jamhuuriya Geeska Africa Haatuf (but i don't think it is regularly updated). Waaheen Somaliland Times The Republican Those are all locally printed newspapers which have websites of their own. I will add if i forgot something.

Good morning ,,,,,, This is the starting of my week. The weekend was so damn fast that i didn't even notice. Wassup yall ??

,,, Nin waalan

how do i know ? ,, probably you better go and check it out for yourself.

Well, not bad i guess. At least you've tried.

Walaahi waa mushkilad .... meesha dadka uun baa ku dhamaanaya afartan dameer ee meesha isku haystaana iyaguun baa kolba gees isu eryi ........

Ilaahay baan waxaa na dhex joojin ,,,,,,,,,

ALLAH HA U NAXARIISTO

I speculate the government will allow the city to be temporarily ruled by the Islamists based on the Djibouti Accord as a pilot program for the evenual withdrawal of Ethiopian troops from the rest of Somalia How so ??

Originally posted by Brofessor_Geeljire: yeah otherwise, sidan ba lagu galaya; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xccUSypsNNQ&feature=related

Originally posted by NGONGE: This afternoon, I shall spend all my time watching clips of guy. He is probably the inspiration behind all those Marcus Smith videos. ..... waabuu heesayba

20 more minutes and i'm off for the weeekend ,,, whohoooooooooooo

Ibtisam + Muscles = loooooooooooooooooool

We're all niggas niyow ,,, wixii madow oo dhan ,, inaga waan isku odhan karnaa lakin dadka kele kama ogolin ,,,,,,

That has nothing to do with having a national banks sxb. Every existing country has a National Bank regardless of the condition of its people.

Originally posted by Cadaan: Jibis, hilib lo', I'm a food expert. Too bad it's not good for my health One of these days though, I want to slaughter a cow the xalaal way, seeing as I've witnessed the deaths of hundreds of cows already, it wouldn't faze me. Waar niyow let's share one and open it in Hargeisa. I'm sure it will be a good business.

I can do it anytime, nigga ,,,

Just change the radio into a cell phone, yo

....... walee hadaa aduunkii wuu waashay.

I thought that is the Jibis industry ,,,

Sadly, no Mcdonalds in Hargeisa ,,,,, i think we need one so we'll have a bigger people here ,,,

You are too behind my friend or you are in a state of denial .........