Traditional blood compensation perversely protected attackers who stole property in Mogadishu.

Evidence

In the same vein, innocent people who, in the course of protecting their property, wounded or killed armed attackers, found they were expected to pay blood compensation (mag) in the traditional fashion to their assailants. In general, only those who belonged to strong clans and lineages could protect their lives and property successfully. And while compensation was imported into urban life with the clan system, and successfully claimed (by the stronger party) in cases of targeted individual assault, it was obviously not possible to pin responsibility on individuals in the artillery exchanges which frequently broke out in Mogadishu. — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 649

Categorization

• XREF: This inverts the earlier sympathetic treatment of mag as social order — now it shields predators. Lewis’s own framework comes full circle. — connects to: Siyad fled Mogadishu in January 1991, and clan divisions became Somalia’s only security structure; Victims defending property had to pay blood compensation to their attackers.; Blood-compensation liability reform lay at the roots of Somali clan politics — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 396