Somalia

London’s Somalia Conference arrived with a little less fanfare this year. The press conference was held in a smaller room, the United States Secretary of State and most African hea...

The follow-up to the 2012 London Conference on Somalia should be ‘a substantial conference with substantial outcomes’, said a senior British diplomat of the second London gatheri...

Whether or not Puntland is ‘ready for democracy’, the government has postponed the local elections due on 15 May. There is no clear notion of when, if ever, they will occur. Presid...

The head of the Somali National Intelligence and Security Agency, General Ahmed Moallim Fiqi, quit on 25 March amid growing fears about security in Mogadishu. The capital suffere...

For weeks, diplomats in Kenya have fretted about the brewing discord between President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud of Somalia and Mwai Kibaki of Kenya. They finally met in Nairobi just b...

The raid by French Special Forces on 11 January on the place where Al Haraka al Shabaab al Mujahideen was believed to be holding a French intelligence officer may have been a trap,...

Optimism was high last September when President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud took office and appointed a cabinet led by Abdi Farah Shirdon ‘Said’ (AC Vol 53 No 22). The early promise has ...

Somaliland’s success story will come under growing regional pressure in 2013, partly because of developments in neighbouring Somalia. The key issue for Somaliland remains diplomati...

The hijacking of merchant ships off the coast of Somalia has decreased dramatically in the last year. Yet the private military security companies whose armed guards are largely cre...

In the two months that it took President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud to appoint the Premier and other ministers, he has attracted growing criticism for his aloof style. The diplomats and...