Above the shimmering horizon, in the middle of a deserted highway, stands an oversize figure wearing a golf cap, huge sunglasses, baggy jeans, and an iPhone on his hip, not your typical outfit in war-torn Somalia. But Mohamed Aden is not your typical Somali. “Welcome to Adado,” he says, beaming, arms ready for a bear hug, “Now, let’s bounce.”

Aden, 37, is part militia commander, part schoolteacher, part lawmaker, part engineer, part environmentalist, part king—a mind-boggling combination of roles for anyone to play, let alone for a guy who dresses (and talks) like a rapper and recently moved from Minnesota to Somalia.

Think of him as the accidental warlord. In less than a year, Aden, who was born in Somalia and emigrated to the United States at age 22, has essentially built a state within a state. With money channelled from fellow clansmen living in the US and Europe, he has transformed Adado in central Somalia, which used to be haunted by bandits and warring Islamic factions, into an enclave of peace, with a functioning police force, scores of new businesses, new schools and new rules.

At times Aden has had to speak with the business end of a machine gun. His patch—which encompasses around 5,000 square miles and a few hundred thousand people, most of them desperately poor nomads of his own Saleban clan—is now one of the safest parts of this broken nation.

“When I landed here, I was taken aback, in a good way,” said Denise Brown, a United Nations World Food Program official who visited Adado recently. “I didn’t see what I usually see in Somalia: destitution, chaos, needy people.”

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