"Senseless violence" in Somalia

New York Times reporter Jeffrey Gettleman has filed a number of reports from Somalia on fighting between the recently established transitional government — which has been aided by the Ethiopian and U.S. military — and Islamist forces.

A January 12 story is accompanied online by an audio "Back Story" interview with Gettleman, who explains the past weeks' events. In a January 18 story, Gettleman profiles a 22-year-old wounded militiaman:

MOGADISHU, Somalia, Jan. 18 — A week ago, Yoonis Issay Alin was riding around in the back of a pickup, part of a squad of tough-looking guys with big trucks and big guns.

Now he is drooling on a metal cot, shot in the head over a parking spot.

All around him at Medina Hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, young men writhe in steamy beds, their arms and legs trapped in traction ropes, their gunshot wounds the latest proof of a society out of control. It is hard to imagine there is enough gauze in this broken-down country to keep up.

Somalia may be at a turning point, with a potentially viable government for the first time since 1991. But senseless violence is still the norm, as ubiquitous as qat, the plant people here chew and chew as a drug until the ugliness of life fades away, even if just for a moment.