Word: somalia
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Chomsky pointed to Congo and Somalia as African countries that have been particularly affected by Western imperialism...
MOGADISHU, SOMALIA...
...does this matter? There are two immediate reasons. The humanitarian crisis unfolding in Somalia is now on a par, in numbers and acuteness, with Darfur. The U.N. says 1.5 million people need assistance, of which a mere 60,000 are getting it. And Somalia is of significant strategic interest. Pirates based there regularly strike ships heading to and from the Suez Canal, and attacks have rocketed this year. The conflict in Somalia - which pits Ethiopian and T.F.G. troops against Somali rebels, backed by Eritrea - also has the potential to ignite a larger regional war that engulfs the Horn of Africa...
...Most important for the U.S., Somalia has wider international ramifications for terrorism. It has been a home to al-Qaeda-funded Islamist radicals since the early 1990s. The Ethiopians invaded to topple the Union of Islamic Courts (U.I.C.), which had ruled Mogadishu for six months and whose leader declared a jihad on Ethiopian troops then operating inside Somalia. According to insurgents I spoke to this summer in Mogadishu, U.S. intervention alongside Ethiopian forces - U.S. warplanes carried out at least two strikes on suspected Islamists in the south of the country in January, and a warship unleashed an artillery barrage...
...generals frequently refer to Somalia as the "third front in the war on terror." Hundreds of foreign Islamist fighters are heeding calls from Osama bin Laden to go fight in Somalia, according to analysts in the region. And militant leader Aden Hashi Ayro, wounded in the January strikes, has now recovered and is leading a reconstituted and overtly anti-American U.I.C. rebellion in Mogadishu. There is little question that such dire assessments are becoming increasingly accurate...