Vol 51 No 20 | SOMALIA In search of policy 8th October 2010 As outsiders worry about terrorism and piracy, social breakdown in Somalia gets worse Nobody knows what to do about Somalia. In Madrid in September, the International Crisis Group held the latest of a series of international meetings that included the United...
Vol 51 No 16 | SOMALIA The Afghan effect 6th August 2010 African leaders ask why the West prefers to help the Kabul regime but not the even shakier one in Mogadishu Behind the general condemnation of the 11 July bombings in Kampala, for which Harakat al Shabaab al Mujahideen (Mujahideen Youth Movement) claimed responsibility, Western governments are wary of...
Vol 51 No 16 | SOMALIA Mogadishu's ministry of truth 6th August 2010 Somalia's new Information Minister, Abdirahman Omar Osman, wants African Union troops to defend more aggressively the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and its 'moderate' Islamist vision. The AU should...
Vol 51 No 15 | SOMALIAUGANDA Fighting on a new front 23rd July 2010 The United States’ containment policy has failed and, with its regional ambitions strengthened, Al Shabaab is back on the front foot President Yoweri Museveni welcomes African Union leaders to Kampala on 25 July playing a role he has made his own: military leader and regional policeman. Ugandan opposition politicians...
Vol 51 No 15 | SOMALIAUGANDA Secretive Shabaab 23rd July 2010 Al Shabaab’s political tactics and internal dynamics are deliberately, systematically opaque, on the classic Islamist model. It is both nationalist and avowedly part of the global jihad. Shabaab’s...
Vol 51 No 6 | SOMALIA More troops for Mogadishu 19th March 2010 The government has new allies against Al Shabaab but the facts on the ground remain much the same The Transitional Federal Government has a new component. On 15 March in Addis Ababa, the TFG signed an agreement with Ahlu Sunna wal Jama’a, the council (and militia)...
Vol 51 No 6 | SOMALIA Whitehall strengthens Sharif 19th March 2010 No one was left in any doubt about the purpose of President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed’s four-day trip to Britain last week. He wanted, he told a 9 March...
Vol 51 No 5 | ERITREASOMALIA Target Asmara 5th March 2010 UN experts identify Asmara’s troublemaking in Somalia but the Security Council may not do much about it A new United Nations investigation, still under wraps but seen by Africa Confidential, will lead to further quarrels in the UN Security Council over what to do about...
Vol 51 No 4 | SOMALIA Money muddles 19th February 2010 Western governments publicly back Somalia’s ‘moderate Islamist’ government but have not disbursed the promised funds. The Transitional Federal Government (TFG), now besieged in its capital by Al Shabaab,...
Vol 51 No 3 | SOMALIAUGANDAEUROPEAN UNION Training the trainers 5th February 2010 Uganda and the European Union are combining to train security forces for Somalia’s shaky Transitional Federal Government.