Out of Tragedy, An Opportunity for Somalia

Saturday’s twin-truck suicide bombings in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, have so far killed at least 320 people and injured hundreds. The assault took place at a buzzing intersection on a busy afternoon during peak traffic, causing maximum damage to people and property. In the aftermath, men and women searching for victims in the rubble looked small amid the mounds of steel that formed unnatural valleys. In the coming days, more are certain to die in the city’s few under-resourced and over-crowded hospitals.

AsSomalia’s political class struggles to respond to Saturday’s attack, it will have itsgreatest opportunity to prove to a cynical but eternally hopeful people that despite decades of bloodshed, dysfunction, and corruption, the government is a legitimate,