MOGADISHU: You might think Abdi Hassan Awale had witnessed enough US muscle-flexing in Somalia, after watching in horror as anti-tank missiles smashed into his office in a surprise strike that killed 50 men and women.

You’d be wrong, though, despite his raw memories of the botched US attempt to eliminate a Somali militia warlord that also wounded dozens of people, including him, in July 1993.

Not that Awale wants Washington to return its military to the ruined Horn of Africa country, where the former militia official helped fight US troops during a disastrous American foray into Somali peacekeeping in the early 1990s.

But he and other Somalis with ample reason to hate Uncle Sam are telling Washington and other Western powers to come right on back — but this time use financial and diplomatic clout to help drag the country out of a cycle of war, poverty and disease.

“This is not Tora Bora,” Awale said, gently mocking American suspicions that Muslim extremists have bases in the country like the mountainous Al Qaeda hideout in Afghanistan.

Awale now runs Mogadishu’s beleaguered police, and he would dearly like technical help and training from foreign police forces to help restore law and order on his dangerous beat.

“I ask them to come here and assist us,” Awale added. “We welcome international assistance with our policing.”

So far there is little sign such appeals are being heeded, amid suspicions in Washington that the transitional national government (TNG) Awale works for harbours some radical Muslims.

Delaying the resumption of help, they say, risks turning the country into exactly the thing the outside world says it does not want — a breeding ground for terrorism.

“Bin Laden cannot last a day in Somalia. Terrorists have no area of their own here,” says militia leader Mohammed Qanyare.

“But in future anything is possible. Terrorism is a taught thing, and Somalis are human beings who can easily learn.”

CAUTIOUS INTEREST: Aid flows are tiny. Of the UN consolidated inter-agency appeal for 84 million dollars in funds for 2002, just six million dollars or seven per cent was pledged by March 26, UN figures show.