ABSTRACT
Mogadishu is safer than it has been for several decades, yet its experience suggests that security provision and policing are essentially negative, and are about minimising insecurity and avoiding danger, rather than service, partnership or community policing. Unlike most analyses of Mogadishu's security governance, which concentrate on high-level developments involving the international community's plans for Somalia's stabilisation and political progress, this chapter explores the ways in which the city's Somali inhabitants assess street-level threats and try to mitigate insecurity. Mogadishu's security environment is shaped by terrorist, insurgent, criminal and militia networks entrenched in clan identity politics, all of which are exacerbated by chronic violence, poverty, deprivation, inequality and alienation. Mogadishu's security governance is dominated by its need to counter terrorism, and the central issue confronting the Federal Government of Somalia, the regional administration and residents is how best to reduce the insecurity and vulnerability associated with Al-Shabaab.
