Sharif Sheikh Ahmed

October 31, 2011 | Daveed Gartenstein-Ross The Atlantic

America’s 4-Prong Strategy for Somalia

After years of strategic drift in Somalia, the U.S. appears to have developed a new strategy for this battle-torn country. This four-part approach, which is based on our research and confirmed by...

March 15, 2011 | The Long War Journal

American Shabaab Commander Alive, Says US intel

An American citizen who serves as a senior Shabaab military commander and propagandist is thought to be still alive, US intelligence officials told The Long War Journal, disputing a report from l...

February 1, 2011 | J. Peter Pham World Defense Review

Somalia in Need of New Approach Two Decades after State Collapse

Last week marked the twentieth anniversary of the night when Mohamed Siyad Barre, president of the last entity that could plausibly be described as the government of Somalia, fled Mogadishu in hi...

October 18, 2010 | World Defense Review

Somalia’s New Prime Minister: Not Quite What the Doctor Ordered

Just when it seems things can get no worse for Somalia's dubiously legitimate, utterly ineffective, and wholly self-serving "Transitional Federal Government" (TFG), the embattled clique pull...

September 30, 2010 | World Defense Review

A Subtle, But Significant, Shift in U.S. Somali Policy Opens the Door to Realism

Last Friday, speaking in New York to reporters one day after attending a major meeting on Somalia chaired by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the margins of the 65th session the Un...

September 11, 2010 | The Long War Journal

Is ‘Constructive Disengagement’ the Solution in Somalia?

On Thursday, Joshua Foust published an article at PBS's Need to Know that, though avoiding the term "constructive disengagement," mirrors the arguments advanced by Bronwyn Bruton's repo...

May 27, 2010 | J. Peter Pham World Defense Review

Ballots and Bullets: The Tale of the Two Somalias

Last week, Somalis marked the fiftieth anniversary of their achievement of independence from colonial rule. The contrasting manner in which two parts of the onetime Somali Democratic Republic obs...

May 27, 2010 | World Defense Review |

Turkey’s Return to Africa

In the end, neither the superabundant expressions of support voiced by donor nations for the ramshackle “Transitional Federal Government” (TFG) of Somalia nor that regime’s corr...

November 4, 2009 | CTR Vantage

Somali President Sheikh Sharif’s Diplomatic Efforts in the U.S.

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Madeleine Gruen Somali president Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed traveled to the U.S. in early October; among other things, h...

November 4, 2009 | CTR Vantage

Understanding al-Shabaab

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Madeleine Gruen The advance of Islamist groups in Somalia is seen as a cause for concern by Western law enforcement and...

October 22, 2009 | Middle East Quarterly

The Strategic Challenge of Somalia’s Al-Shabaab

Since emerging from an era of colonialism under Italy and Britain, Somalia has passed through military dictatorship, famine, and civil war to regional fragmentation. In the modern period, America...

October 15, 2009 | World Defense Review

Eritrea: Spoiler Exacerbates Crisis in the Horn of Africa and Beyond

By Dr. J. Peter Pham One of the frustrations with which Africa's friends have had to repeatedly cope over the years has been the seemingly utter incapacity of the African l...

September 24, 2009 | World Defense Review

Putting Puntland’s Potential into Play

By Dr. J. Peter Pham In last week's column, I noted that the United States military and intelligence communitie...

September 17, 2009 | World Defense Review

Somali Instability Still Poses Threat Even After Successful Strike on Nabhan

By Dr. J. Walid Phares The United States struck an important blow against Islamist terrorism in the Horn of Africa earlier this week when, in the middle of the day on Monday, Sp...

June 23, 2009 | Dr. J. Peter Pham World Defense Review

Fiddling While Somalia Burns

Difficult as it may be to conceive, the already-bad security situation in Somalia deteriorated further over the weekend. Yet as Islamist militants brought their offensive to the edge of Mogadishu...

March 26, 2009 | Dr. J. Peter Pham Family Security Matters

Bin Laden’s Somali Gambit

Last week, al-Qaeda chieftain Usama bin Laden interjected himself yet once again into the ongoing conflict in the territory of the former Somali Democratic Republic. On closer examination, the mo...

March 12, 2009 | Dr. J. Peter Pham World Defense Review

The Chinese Navy’s Somali Cruise

by Dr. Peter Pham Since the beginning of January, three vessels of China's People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) - the Guangzhou-class destroyer Wuhan...

June 13, 2007 | Daveed Gartenstein-Ross Middle East Quarterly

Jihad’s New Leaders

The recent deaths of prominent Al-Qaeda terrorists such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq and Abu Hafs al-Urdani in Daghestan, as well as a host of less publicized kills and captures, have hastened...

April 11, 2007 | Dr. J. Peter Pham World Defense Review

Peacekeepers with No Peace to Keep

Somewhere along the crooked path that runs from the collapse of the Soviet Union that signaled the emergence of the United States as the world's lone superpower to the seemingly intractable...

April 4, 2007 | Dr. J. Peter Pham World Defense Review

The Tipping Point in Somalia

In last week's column, I warned that the situation in Somalia has become untenable: while the country's nominal "Transitional Federal Government" (TFG) is nowhere to be found and the Ug...