Lawless land; Somalia is so broken-down that a regularly scheduled drug flight is the easiest way in. A reporter goes along and finds ruins, warlords, and a whole lot of guns.

• Author: McNeil, Donald G., Jr.
• Position: International

MOGADISHU, Somalia--One clear sign that a government has failed is that no one asks for your passport when you fly into the country. There will, however, be someone--the representative of whatever warlord controls the dirt landing strip--demanding a $25 or $50 "customs fee," also known as a bribe.

There are five such "airports" serving Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, not counting the real one, which has been closed for years. The easiest way into the country is on a drug flight. There are expensive flights in from Nairobi, Kenya, for United Nations aid workers. Then there are khat flights. On a Saturday afternoon, I called Bluebird Aviation, a charter agency that gave me the cellphone number of Abdulkadir Sofie, a khat exporter--in the United States, one might say smuggler or drug lord, but khat is legal in both Kenya and Somalia.

Khat (pronounced somewhere between "cat" and "chat") is chewed while green for a coca-leaf sort of high that speeds up your heart, clears your sinuses, and makes you jumpy and a little euphoric--but still able to drive or shoot as straight as is normally required in Somalia. Khat grows in the mountains of Kenya, and is picked at night and rushed to Nairobi to fly at dawn, before the leaves dry out.

For $600, Sofie agreed to forgo six bales of khat to make room for me and a photographer on his morning flight into Mogadishu. We got the only row of seats on the plane, braced by 70 grassy-smelling bales of khat.

EVERYTHING IN SHAMBLES

We landed three hours later in a country so fractured that the so-called government controls less than half its capital city and some coastal strips. Two northern states have broken off into virtually independent nations. In the rest of the country, 30 clans with overlapping borders frequently war over land, cattle, and active family feuds.

The economy is in shambles. With no central bank to object, businessmen have privately printed billions in the national currency, the shilling, rendering it almost worthless. Meanwhile, Somalia's biggest exports, beef and camel meat, were banned 15 months ago for fear they might be contaminated with deadly Rift Valley fever. And in 12 years of civil war, warlords have shelled or looted everything.

Since Sept. 11, the United States has taken a new interest in Somalia, believing that it may become a hiding place for experienced terrorists--including Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden--and a breeding ground for new ones. U.S. warships patrol the coastline in an effort to prevent Al Qaeda refugees from sneaking in.

CIVIL WAR LEADS TO FAMINE

Somalia has been torn by civil war since 1991, when rebels overthrew the military government...