Word: somalia
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...could argue that the U.S. was playing a dangerous game when it killed a suspected top al-Qaeda leader in a brazen daytime helicopter raid in Somalia earlier this week. While the Americans swoop in and carry out targeted strikes such as this, the African Union peacekeeping mission to the country (called the African Union Mission in Somalia, or AMISOM) remains stymied on the ground, undermanned and vulnerable, its troops bearing an unenviable and almost impossible task. In a country that has been in chaos for nearly 20 years, what peace can 5,000 Burundian and Ugandan soldiers possibly keep...
...deadly drama of piracy, terrorism and humanitarian catastrophe that is Somalia took another twist on Sept. 14. A squad of U.S. special operations helicopter gunships, which were launched off a Navy vessel in the Indian Ocean, attacked and killed an alleged al-Qaeda leader in Somalia, U.S. officials told TIME. The dead man was believed to be Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a 28-year-old Kenyan wanted for attacks on a seaside hotel and an Israeli airliner in 2002 in Kenya. It was at least the sixth attack by U.S. forces in Somalia in less than three years...
...much as it seemed to be a successful strike against terrorism, the attack was also a testament to Somalia's longevity as a refuge for Islamist militants. Conditions haven't changed in years. Somalia last had a government worthy of the name nearly two decades ago, in 1991. For most of the 1990s, like Afghanistan at the time, the country was torn apart by rival warlords. Like Afghanistan too, out of that chaos arose an army of radical Islamist warriors who were determined to bring strict religious law and order to the country, but who were also open to funding...
Since late 2006, Somalia's chaos has been felt ever more keenly around the world. The Islamists, under the umbrella organization of a group called the Islamic Courts Union, briefly took control of Mogadishu in spring 2006. But radicals in their ranks declared a jihad on neighboring Ethiopia - a mixed Muslim and Christian country - and Ethiopia invaded Somalia in December of that year. U.S. special operations troops hitched a ride with that operation, using the opportunity to track down the U.S. embassy bombers and any other al-Qaeda operatives in the country. During that invasion, al-Qaeda bombmaker Tariq Abdullah...
...assassinations, from Mauritania to Somaliland. The Somali connection is proving to be a particular worry with the regrouping of militants under the new unified command of a group called al-Shabaab and the discovery that scores of young Muslim men from the U.S., Britain and Australia are traveling to Somalia to receive weapons training in al-Shabaab camps. This year, three men from Minneapolis pleaded guilty to terrorism-related charges in the U.S., and at least three more have died in Somalia, including one whom authorities believe was the first American suicide bomber. Australian authorities last month revealed that they...