Somalia
Jamhuuriyadda Soomaaliya
Yemen Must Not Become Another Somalia -
Bringing the fight to al-Qaida is one thing; having to shoulder the burden of a country in a state of collapse is quite another....
How to Save Somalia -
Famine, drought, war, piracy, international terrorism, and the absence of democratic governance: The factors behind, as well as the symptoms of, the failed Somali state are legion....
Look at Europe Getting All Tough on Pirates -
On Tuesday, joint military forces operating under the European flag launched an attack against a Somali pirate base ashore. An attack helicopter, believed to be operating off of a ...
Europe to Somali Pirates: Beware -
The European Union naval attack on a Somali pirate base is a vast improvement on last year's mollycoddling....
Is al-Qaeda's Somali Branch Declining? -
he anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death last week focused attention briefly on the continued threat posed by al Qaeda. Too much of that attention has been devoted to al Qae...
Al-Qaeda Is Nation-Building - Should We Be Worried? -
Al-Qaeda's gains warrant serious attention, but they do not represent a shift away from the group's "far enemy" strategy targeting the United States to a "near enemy" strategy targ...
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Most Recent Articles
Europe Prepares to Battle Pirates on Land - Thorsten Jungholt, Die Welt
There’s a lot of traffic in the Gulf of Aden. The Gulf connects the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea. Major international sea routes run through here: every trading vessel heading...
Why Africa's Conflicts Never End - Jeffrey Gettleman, Foreign Policy
There is a very simple reason why some of Africa's bloodiest, most brutal wars never seem to end: They are not really wars. Not in the traditional sense, at least. The combatants...
A Global Assault on Religious Liberty - Doug Bandow, Forbes
Despite its best efforts, America cannot make the world free. But at least Americans can work to make the world freer. They should support religious liberty as they go out into...
EU Goes On Land to Hunt Pirates - Matthias Gebauer, Der Spiegel
Until now, the European Union's Operation Atalanta, which targets pirates off the coast of Somalia, has been restricted to purely maritime operations. But that could soon change, ...
Somaliland: World's Next State? - Dayo Olopade, New York Times
If a country isn’t recognized, does it make a sound? Here in Somaliland, the semi-autonomous northern part of the failed state of Somalia, I discovered that the answer is an emph...
Britain's Prime Minister Comes to America - Niall Ferguson, Newsweek
He wants intervention in Syria and Somalia. Will he get his way?...
India and China Join Forces Against Pirates - Nitin Gokhale, The Diplomat
Relations between India and China look increasingly to be running along two parallel tracks – one of cooperation, the other competition. While New Delhi and Beijing keep a wary ...
Somali Pirates Expand Their Net - Ruari Dowds & Tim Hart, The National
In recent years, Somali piracy has moved from isolated incidents to become the main talking point in the shipping industry. The pirates have constantly been evolving their strategy...
What Can West Do to Help Somalia? - Adjoa Anyimadu, The Independent
The international community must pay attention to lessons from past international intervention in Somalia....
World Has a Stake in Somalia - William Hague, Globe and Mail
Somalia has suffered from a terrible famine in the past year. The conference highlighted the need for donors to continue responding generously to this crisis – and to provide...
America's Hidden War in Somalia - The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
The Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) is the lead agency in the covert ‘war on terror’ in Somalia, although the CIA also has a strong regional pr...
Britain Could Make Somalia Much Worse - Simon Tisdall, The Guardian
Thursday's London conference on Somalia is portrayed as a bold attempt, in the words of the foreign secretary, William Hague, "to change the dynamic from one of inexorabl...
Al-Qaeda's Unsurprising Merger - Thomas Joscelyn, Weekly Standard
Shabaab has, once again, announced its loyalty to al Qaeda. And Ayman al Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s post-bin Laden emir, has formally accepted Shabaab into al Qaeda’s fold....
Victory Against al-Shabaab Gets Ugly - Bruton & Pham, Foreign Affairs
For the better part of five years, much of Somalia's long-suffering population has been caught in a deadly stalemate between al Shabaab, an al Qaeda-linked militant group, and Afri...
Obama's Special Forces Fascination - Richard Weitz, The Diplomat
Barack Obama's attraction to unconventional operations has perhaps only been rivaled by John F. Kennedy. But plans for a floating base have their limits....
The Right Way to Deal With Somalia's Thugs - National Post
Three months ago, two aid workers helping to clear land mines out of Somalia were captured by local pirates. Jessica Buchanan, a 32-year-old American, and Danish citizen Poul Hag...
How the Global Gun Market Fuels Piracy - C.J. Chivers, At War
Modern assault rifles tend to last and last, and even lawful exports can lead to consequences decades later. Did anyone in Singapore think, as these rifles were exported, that s...
Bin Laden's Killers Send Pirates a Message - Matt Gurney, National Post
Three months ago, two aid workers helping to clear landmines out of Somalia were captured by local pirates. Jessica Buchanan, a 32-year-old American, and Danish citizen Poul Hagen ...
U.S. to Twitter: Stop Sleeping With the Enemy - Daniel Freedman, Forbes
The love affair between Twitter and the U.S. government is in danger of crashing as spectacularly as a celebrity relationship: with tears, disavowals, a chorus of 'I told you so'...
Africa's Arc of Terror - Jerusalem Post
What we are seeing across Africa is a deeper connection between various Islamic extremist groups, such as al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb in the Sahara, Boko Haram in Nigeria, an...
Somalia: World's Worst Crisis - Center for Strategic and Int'l Studies
The drought and famine in the Horn of Africa continues, with the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net) recently confirming that the famine in the Middle Shabelle, as well...
Shortchanging Somalia - Los Angeles Times
Cutting off funding sources for Islamic militants at war with the U.S. is an important priority, but there must be a way of doing it that doesn't end all remittances to and from ...
The 15 Humanitarian Crises of 2012 - Mark Leon Goldberg, UN Dispatch
December 14, 2011 Mark Leon Goldberg Category: Security ...
Climate Debate Must Address Famine - Robinson & Arnold, Irish Times
The climate change conference in Durban provides an opportunity to develop a sustainable global food system....
Ethiopia Dragged Reluctantly Back into Somalia - Richard Lough, Reuters
Ethiopia is being sucked back into Somalia to open another front against Islamist rebels battling Kenyan forces but even a military victory is unlikely to end two decades of anarc...
Somali Pirates Widen Their Net - Int'l Institute for Strategic Studies
Abductions of tourists from Kenyan holiday resorts have drawn renewed attention to the problem posed by Somali pirates. While pirates' attempts at hijacking ships in the Gulf of Ad...
Inside al-Shabaab's Leadership - American Enterprise Institute
Al Shabaab is a radical Islamist militant group that controls most of southern and central Somalia. The group is fighting an insurgency against the UN-backed Transitional Federal G...
What Is Kenya Doing in Somalia? - Center for Strategic and Int'l Studies
Kenya is in the third week of a major military offensive inside neighboring Somalia. Called “Operation Protect the Nation,” it is Kenya’s largest military operati...
A Thousand Fatwas for Somalia's al-Shabaab - Ken Menkhaus, Globe & Mail
Al-Shabaab's leadership wears criticism from the West like a badge of honour. As for the Somali people, al-Shabaab treats them like cannon fodder, and uses their country as a pla...
Somalia's Uneasy Peace - Glen Johnson, Le Monde Diplomatique
Abdullahi walked slowly past makeshift stalls in a crowded Mogadishu market, dragging his right leg. He’s in his fifties and unemployed, and relies on overseas remittances se...
Kenya Faces a Quagmire in Somalia - Brian Dabbs, World Politics Review
Less than a mile from the Kenyan border, dozens of soldiers toting AK-47s saunter along the derelict and flooded roads that snake through Dhobley’s ramshackle homes and marke...
Kenya's Blundering Mission in Somalia - Tendai Marima, Al Jazeera
Kenya, fearing damage to the tourism trade, has sent troops to secure its borders and battle al-Shabaab in Somalia....
Kenya's Doomed Invasion of Somalia - Alex Perry, Global Spin
Kenya's hasty invasion of its northern neighbor Somalia took a tragic turn late Sunday when, according to witnesses on the ground, the Kenyan air force bombed a refugee camp shel...
Treat Somali Pirates as Terrorists - John Bolton, Washington Times
The recent kidnapping of a handicapped French woman from a Kenyan resort, initially attributed to Somali pirates, was the second such kidnapping in a month. Kenyan authorities now...
Turkey Is Mobilizing to Help Somalia - Recep Tayyip Erdogan, FP
Somalia is suffering from the most severe drought and famine in the last 60 years, which has already resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of people and endangers the lives o...
Mogadishu Bombing Delivers a Slap to Turkey - Tony Karon, Global Spin
The truck bomb attack that killed more than 100 people in Mogadishu on Tuesday was a not entirely unfamiliar horror for the residents of a city locked in a permanent state of fra...
Do Muslims Care About Somalia? - A. Ahmed & F. Martin, Foreign Policy
A young, rail-thin, and gaunt Somali woman, cradling her starving child in her arms, looks straight into the camera. Her eyes are dead; she has seen too much suffering. "Where are ...
Muslim World Frays, UN Obsessed by Israel - Jeffrey Goldberg, Bloomberg
Many groups not lucky enough to have Jewish adversaries are seeking independence as well, and many more groups, and individuals, are seeking freedom and dignity within independent ...
It Takes More Than Drones - Washington Post
While militants can and should be picked off by targeted strikes in Yemen and Somalia, neither country will cease to be a source of terrorism until it can be stabilized under a r...
A Secret License to Kill - David Cole, New York Review of Books
If we are engaging the enemy within the rule of law, as Brennan insisted we must, we should have the courage to make our policies transparent, so that the people, both in the Uni...
Yemen on Verge of Becoming Somalia - Simon Tisdall, The Guardian
The Yemeni regime's indiscriminate machine-gunning of demonstrators in the capital, Sana'a, and the opposition's furious reaction, suggests the country's eight-month-old crisis may...
Somalia Needs Much More Aid Than It's Getting - Washington Post
The Famine in Somalia continues to spread. Last week the United Nations added a sixth area of the country to the zone where starvation has become acute and said 750,000 people co...
The High Cost of Failure in Somalia - Center for American Progress
The disastrous famine in Somalia is the worst the world has seen in 20 years, and it again casts a harsh spotlight on the situation in that country. With millions of people now at ...
About Somalia
- Republic of Somalia
- Population: 9,832,017 (83rd)
- Area Size: 246,201 sq mi (43rd)
- GDP: $5.524 billion (156th)
- Currency: Somali shilling (SOS)
- Official Language: Somali, Arabic
- Capital City: Mogadishu
- Largest City: Mogadishu