Camels and guns welcome to Mogadishu

MOGADISHU, June 21 (Reuters) They say Mogadishu rivals Baghdad as the world's most dangerous city.

But my first impression of the Somali capital was a placid one: camels ambled over sand-dunes as our plane landed on a beach next to gently lapping sea water.

The illusion was short-lived. A ball of dust gave way to the sight of two pick-ups, each packed with wiry young men holding AK-47s beside a large machine-gun bolted to the vehicle.

Fortunately, these ''technicals'' battle vehicles now almost a symbol of war-torn Somalia were there to protect us.

And the grinning gunmen, incongruously wearing sandals, were keener to practice their English than their aim.

''I have been a gunman since I was eight,'' said one, now 27. ''I would like to go to school.'' Ten of us chartered a plane from Nairobi to Mogadishu at the invitation of the newly-powerful Islamic courts movement. Days earlier they had kicked out American-backed warlords in the most ferocious fighting since ''Black Hawk Down'' in 1993.

Visiting the Somali capital -- for long off-limits to Western reporters -- was an edgy experience.

Several journalists and humanitarian workers have lost their lives in Somalia since the 1991 ousting of Mohamed Siad Barre began an era of anarchy.

Nerves quickly subsided, however, as we saw the near-total grip our hosts now had on Mogadishu.

With one ''technical'' in front of our convoy, and another behind, cars, donkeys and pedestrians hurriedly made way as we sped over sandy tracks and pot-holed streets. Many residents raised a hand or fist in greeting as we passed.

Granted, everyone is friendly to a winner.

Nevertheless, there seemed genuine enthusiasm for the new Islamist rulers and happiness that Western reporters were in a city long shunned by foreigners for security reasons.

GREAT COMMS, AWFUL STREETS As a first-timer to Mogadishu, I was amazed at the signs of ingenuity and entrepreneurship all around me the only way society has kept going in the absence of normal government.

At the main port just north of Mogadishu, makeshift systems like floating oil-pipes, barges and lines of men with sacks on their backs kept fuel and goods flowing in from ships just a few hundred yards away.

Fiat cars from the 1950s a leftover from Italian occupation somehow still run. They reminded me of my last posting in Havana, where old American cars roam the streets.

A local SIM card for my mobile phone came free, communications were perfect, and 10 dollar gave me about five times more air-time calling abroad than it would back in Kenya.

''Why surprised? We pay no taxes and we have much competition.

Prices are lowest in world,'' my supplier explained.

The power vacuum has created a new class of Somali rich. Their large, well-painted compounds stand out from the tin shacks and dilapidated buildings where most of Mogadishu's 2 million people live.

They ride a 4-by-4 instead of donkey. None appear to see money in rubbish collection. Mogadishu was the most littered city I have seen, every bush a scarecrow of fluttering plastic bags, open spaces piled high with trash for animals to chew.

As well as being something of a free-market paradise, Mogadishu has been marked by the law of the jungle. Thin, young boys with guns rule the streets, while older and fatter men with money pull the strings from behind.

I gaped at the munitions on show from anti-aircraft guns on the backs of lorries to belts of bullets hanging on militiamen - making a mockery of a supposed UN arms embargo on Somalia.

Veteran visitors were struck by the opposite. Armed checkpoints, where levies were extorted for years to fund the warlords, have disappeared or been replaced by Islamic gunmen who wave traffic and people through with no money exchanged.

And there were far fewer guns on the street. Still there, of course, Somalis told me, but hidden under beds for now.

REUTERS SY BD0953