Transitional Federal Government of Somalia

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...

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...

Top Shabaab commander targeted in Mogadishu mosque bombings

Forty Shabaab fighters and supporters were killed in a pair of bombings today that targeted a top Shabaab military commander at a mosque in the Bakara market in Mogadishu. The first bomb...

Amici Curiae Brief for Samantar v. Yousuf

Dr. j. Peter Pham Former Somali General Mohamed Ali Samantar was defense minister and vice president (1980-1986) and, once the post was revived, prime minister (1987-1990) under Somalia&...

Guinea: In Search of a Soft Landing

Guinea cannot seem to catch a break. In 1958, it was the only French colony to opt for an immediate break with France rather than continued association with Paris leading to gradual inde...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Profile of an Ideologue, Abu Yahya al-Libi

The Challenge of Somali Piracy

By Dr. J. Peter Pham In a metaphor that the traditionally nomadic Somalis would undoubtedly appreciate, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Last Thursday, Somali pirates...

Pirates of Somalia: The Curse of the Failed State

On April 4, MY Le Ponant, an 850-ton three-masted luxury sailing yacht owned by CMA CGM S.A., a French firm headed by Lebanese-born businessman Jacques Saadé that is the third-largest container shipping company in the world, was en route from the Seychelles to the Mediterranean when it was seized in international waters in the Gulf of Aden by Somali pirates. A week later, after the owners had paid a ransom reported to be around $2 million, Le Ponant docked at the port of Eyl in the semi-autonomous northeastern region of Puntland and the 30 crew members – twenty-two Frenchmen, six Filipinos, a Cameroonian, and a Ukrainian – were released. French forces, however, tracked the attackers to the nearby fishing village of Jariban where helicopter-borne commandos disabled the escape vehicle with sniper fire and seized six of what is thought to have been an original band of twelve fugitives. The six prisoners were flown to Paris where they were arraigned before a French court on charges of theft, hijacking, and hostage-taking.

Why AFRICOM is Critical for Our Security Interests

This week I thought it useful to update readers on developments with some of the stories that have been previously reported in this column.

The War on Terrorism in Africa: Assessment and Prospects

The end of one year and the beginning of another is a good time both to take stock of where we have been and to look ahead at the paths we are likely to take and the battles which we will have to fight in the coming months. What follows is a broad assessment of status of the African front in what has come to be known as the "Global War on Terror."

On the Move

Al Qaeda could beat the U.S. in Iraq if American political will collapses.

China’s Play for Somalia’s Oil

As this column has chronicled over the past year and a half, United States policy toward the remnants of the former state of Somalia has evolved into a sort of dramatic farce played out in the fo...

Mired in Mogadishu

Two weeks ago a "national reconciliation congress" that Somalia's ineffectual "Transitional Federal Government" (TFG), under pressure from international donors who are its only means of supp...

Smokin’ on Somalia

Last week, my colleague at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), Andrew McCarthy; the former Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York who led the pros...