MARGARET WARNER: What would you add to that, Professor? Do you see it that way? And how did the Islamic Alliance get strong enough to take on these warlords, who I gather are fairly heavily armed?

ABDI SAMATAR: I think Herman Cohen is absolutely right. It's great news, not only for Somalis, but for the international community, that the warlords are out and

The reason why the Islamic courts and the population have been able to succeed in doing this is because there are three groups who are involved in this business: One is the Islamic court; the other is a huge number of very successful businesspeople who have tremendous amounts of weaponry; and, thirdly, there's a very widely distributed civil society movement.

It's these three groups who are holding the fort, so to speak. And the reason I think they have been successful in defeating the warlords is because the people of Mogadishu and Somalia have gotten sick and tired of the violence which has been visited on them, as Secretary Cohen earlier on. And finally they decided they had enough of this and, therefore, decided to go along with the Islamic people.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, could you explain, Professor, why the business community in Somalia is supporting the Islamists? That might seem to, you know, outside observers a contradiction.

ABDI SAMATAR: I would like to call these people Islamic practitioners, rather than Islamists. Islamists has the connotation that they are incredibly politicized and of the kind that you can expect from the Taliban's.

These folks, in my estimation, are far away from that and quite different. The reason why the businesspeople have decided to join forces with this is because the businesspeople have to protect their businesses and their property, and so they literally have to have their own security systems.

If there was a state and if there is peace in Mogadishu, then they wouldn't need all of that. And, secondly, they were also the victims of the warlords, in terms of prosecution, looting, and what have you.

The civil society groups have joined the Islamic courts in large measure because they are the ultimate victims of the war in Mogadishu and elsewhere in the country, so you have a coalition of people spearheaded by the Islamic courts who are doing this at the moment.