The Islamist insurgency persists but al-Qaeda makes little headway

A NEW government in Kenya has let east Africa turn its attention back to the region's original sick man. Ignored and disparaged, Somalia's internationally recognised transitional government has all but collapsed. As an Islamist insurgency continues, the government spends much of the scarce money it has on the personal protection of the president, Abdullahi Yusuf, the prime minister, Nur Adde Hussein, and the defence and intelligence chiefs. The parliament in the town of Baidoa, in the dusty interior, is empty; its members have drifted away.

In the capital, Mogadishu, security is still provided mainly by Ethiopian soldiers who, at the end of 2006, helped the Somali government topple a short-lived Islamist regime known as the Islamic Courts Union. The Ethiopians are helped by a small force from the African Union. Many Somalis have fled the capital: 250,000 former residents now live in tents along the road to Afgooye, the largest camp of displaced people in the world, according to the UN. By some estimates, 1m out of about 8m Somalis are close to starvation—and food prices are rising. Conditions in the middle of Somalia, normally stable, have worsened this year. Widespread famine is feared both there and in the south if the rains usually awaited at this time of the year fail, as weather forecasters predict.

In security across the country persists, with jihadists fighting on. This week they killed two Kenyan and two British teachers in the central town of Beledweyne. One of them, a Briton of Somali origin, may have been targeted for being a Christian convert. Another Briton and Kenyan were kidnapped earlier this month in the trackless bush of the south; a jihadist demanded a ransom of $4m, ten times more than usual. In an unrelated incident, pirates who had hijacked a French yacht off northern Somalia's coast were captured by French commandos and may face trial in France. A jihadist grenade attack on a cinema in the port city of Merka killed about four people—for watching a Bollywood film.

This apparent increase in the brutality of attacks may be caused partly by a recent American decision to classify the Shabab (youth), the Islamic Courts Union's former military wing, as a terrorist group. Battered by Ethiopian attacks and by infighting between sub-clans engaged in the insurgency, Shabab fighters now probably number fewer than 400. But America's decision to demonise them has boosted jihadist commanders such as Aden Hashi Ayro, strengthening his reputation for piety and anti-Americanism, which has itself been boosted by recent missile attacks that have accidentally killed civilians.

But it is not all gloom. Al-Qaeda's bid to make Somalia a base for its global franchise has so far failed. There are probably no more than a few dozen foreign fighters left in the country. Of the three al-Qaeda men believed to have been involved in bombing the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, one, Abu Talha al-Sudani, has been killed; another, Saleh Ali Nabhan, is said to be isolated and close to being captured or killed. A more formidable al-Qaeda man, Fazul Muhammad, may have been in Kenya several times in the past year but is no longer thought to command Somali jihadist fighters. Informants say he is on the run and that, when he has the time, he likes to watch classic Disney films.

So Somalia is not yet a lost cause. After 17 years of anarchy and bloodshed, its GDP per person is still higher than Ethiopia's or Eritrea's. Somali traders still influence the price of commodities across the region. The country limps on, even without much aid; the trade in livestock to Saudi Arabia during the haj is worth a lot more than foreign assistance.

Moreover, there has been progress on the political front. Moderate Islamists and elders from the disaffected Hawiye clan, which provides the secular nationalist bit of the insurgency with most of its fighters, say they are ready to strike a deal with President Yusuf. The price of a unity government would be the departure of the hated Ethiopian troops but it is no longer a precondition. A deal must offer the Hawiye enough to keep them on board, but not so much that it alienates other clans. Finding the balance in a maelstrom of hunger and killing will be hard, but not impossible.