As thousands of American reinforcements continue to land in Somalia, the greatest battle is not against militias but against boredom, anxiety and the blistering heat of the Somali capital.
The newest and starkest foe is Victory Base, home since Monday to 1,100 newly arrived American infantry troops but still not much more than a wide expanse of scrub brush, clouds of sand and dense thorn bushes, about a mile and a half west of the center of Mogadishu.
Several weeks ago, when most of these soldiers landed, they believed that they had come to battle the Somali militias.
But as the scenario in Somalia shifted from one of military might to political concession, the battle has become one of nerves and constant questioning of their mission.
“If we do have a purpose here then give it to us,” Cpl. Michael Jones, 22, said as he crouched under a camouflage tarpaulin atop a tank to avoid the sun. “We thought we were actually coming to fight.”
“We’re causing them more problems with our being here,” he said. “They don’t want us here.”
Jones, like most of the troops in this desert camp, belongs to the 24th Infantry Division from Ft. Stewart, Georgia, units of which rumbled into Victory Base on Monday in a convoy of 400 vehicles.
This vast show of firepower, meant to bolster the U.S. presence in Somalia, seems oddly out of place in Mogadishu.
In an effort not to antagonize forces loyal to Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid, the fugitive Somali clan leader who controls most of the southern part of Mogadishu, the convoy avoided the heart of the city, meandering from the port to the western outskirts on a long detour through back roads.
Still, spokesmen for Aidid’s political party, the Somali National Alliance, say the American troops are encircling the capital and threatening Somalis.
And the Somalis around the base, which is not in Aidid’s territory but in that of a rival clan, yell angrily as American vehicles drive by.
American military officials say that the troops are meant as a deterrent to further Somali attacks and that their job is to keep the main roads open in Mogadishu.
But without any clear guidance on the present rules of military engagement, many of the U.S. military officers are frustrated and the troops anxious.
