Increasing Instability in Somalia
The Wall Street Journal ran a short but thorough summary today on the ongoing situation in Somalia, with foreign insurgents apparently threatening to topple the remnants of the country’s already feeble government. The Journal’s Sarah Childress writes, from Nairobi:
“Somalia’s government requested immediate military assistance from regional powers over the weekend to help combat foreign fighters it says have ties to al Qaeda.
The government said it can’t on its own dispel the insurgents, who have more sophisticated training and weaponry than its own troops.
On Thursday, a bomb killed Somalia’s minister for national security and four other government officials. A day earlier, Mogadishu’s police chief was killed as government forces battled insurgents in the capital. More than 200 people have been killed in the past month due to fighting, the U.N. has said.”
ASP Senior Fellow Dr. Bernard I. Finel and co-author Christine Dehn noted in the “Are We Winning?” interim report that Somalia was a growing hot spot for Islamic terror, and has become “a safe haven for violent radicals with connections to anti-American terrorists.”
Read the entire Wall Street Journal article here, and the “Are We Winning?” interim report here for more information on these issues and other trends in global terror.
