January 4, 2011
Foreign Policy Magazine // International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Across the globe today, you'll find almost three dozen raging conflicts, from the valleys of Afghanistan to the jungles of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the streets of Kashmir. But what are the next crises that might erupt in 2011? Here are a few worrisome spots that make our list. [Captions provided by International Crisis Group]
August 23, 2010
International Relations and Security Network
Abstract:
While Uganda has paid a bitter price at home for its military engagement in Somalia, al-Shabaab’s recent attacks will likely foster a more interventionist agenda in East Africa and play into the hands of insurgents, Georg-Sebastian Holzer writes for ISN Security Watch. It was the biggest militant attack in sub-Saharan Africa since the infamous 1998 al-Qaida bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. The two coordinated bombings in Uganda’s capital Kampala killed 74 people and wounded dozens of others watching the World Cup final on 11 July.
For al-Shabaab it was a successful attack against the country that forms the backbone of the 6,000-strong African Union force in Mogadishu. The movement previously threatened both Uganda and Burundi, the second major troop-supplier to the AMISOM mission, which secures the survival of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) whose movement is virtually confined to a few blocks in the capital....
August 11, 2009
Times Online
Abstract:
Loading ammunition into the magazine of his AK-47 assault rifle, the young suicide bomber looked straight into the camera. “Jihad is real,” he said. “There’s no way you can understand the sweetness of jihad until you come to jihad.”
His accomplice joined in, his face hidden by a scarf. “How dare you sit at home and look on the TV and see Muslims getting killed ... Those who are in Europe and America, get out of those countries,” he ordered.
Moments later a column of black smoke appeared as a battered Toyota truck exploded.
The slick video showing the last moments of a suicide bomber, entitled “Message to those who stay behind”, is part of the latest recruitment propaganda to emerge on English-language websites directed at young wannabe jihadis. Its origins were not, however, in Afghanistan, Iraq or Pakistan, the usual bases of jihadi recruiters, but Somalia, the war-torn east African state.
The site has been traced to Al-Shabaab, a radicalised Islamist militia group led by Somalis trained in Afghanistan and aligned with Al-Qaeda. The group is fighting against Somalia’s fragile transitional government, which is backed by the West and the United Nations.
It is seeking to impose sharia (Islamic law) in Somalia with brutal tactics including public beheadings. Amnesty International has condemned it for cruel punishments including sentencing robbers, without trial, to have their right hand and left foot cut off. What concerns western security officials is that the movement has built an international recruiting network in Somali expatriate communities in the West. It has arranged for impressionable young Somali men to go to a country they scarcely know, to fight for its cause....
July 7, 2009
Integrated Regional Information Networks // United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Abstract:
As more internally displaced persons (IDPs) flee fighting in Mogadishu for the southern coastal city of Kismayo, conditions for thousands already living there are deteriorating sharply, local sources said.
"There are about 29,000 of us [IDPs] in Kismayo and we are living in very bad conditions; no one is helping us," Mahamud Ali, an elder in one of the IDP camps, told IRIN by telephone from Kismayo, 500km south of Mogadishu.
"The last time any assistance was provided to the displaced was in April this year. People are in a desperate situation." There are no aid agencies operating in Kismayo, he said.
The militant Islamic group al-Shabab took control of the town in August 2008 from a clan militia.
The UN World Food Programme told IRIN it last distributed 321MT to 36,000 IDPs six months ago, but following the deaths of four employees earlier this year, it was still seeking security commitments from the authorities before resuming operations....
June 9, 2009
Institute for Security Studies
Abstract:
Protracted conflict has turned Somalia into an impoverished nation and a failed state with an entire generation knowing war as the most common means of social interaction. In stark contrast, the breakaway Republic of Somaliland is an island of stability compared to war-torn south/central Somalia. Despite having never received legal recognition by the international community, Somaliland has been able to arrive at a level of stability that is unknown to south/central Somalia for the last two decades. Due to an inclusive, grass-roots based political reconciliation process, and without international involvement, Somaliland has lifted itself out of the perpetual cycle of poor governance and violence that we see in the rest of the Somali region. In 2003 multiparty elections were held in a smooth fashion in which Dahir Riyale Kahin, who is from a small clan in the north-west of Somaliland, was elected as the third president. However, several rows over multiple postponements of presidential elections are now threatening its stability. Elections must live up to international standards not only because Somaliland wants to be recognized by the international community, but also to prove democracy is a viable construct in a Somali region with complex clan dynamics....
Somalia 
