Young people in Somalia have known only war and little prospect of getting a job.
What do a handful of South African mercenaries do for an encore in Somalia once all the pirates are gone?
South Africa has not learnt any lessons from the bitter experiences the Americans had in Somalia, writes Greg Mills.
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"The military command of al-Shebaab mujahedeen ordered a tactical retreat at midnight," spokesperson Ali Mohamud Rage told AFP.
Somalia has begun training fighters to fill the void created by having an army that comprised mostly a jumble of militia groups.
Despite the fall of their key stronghold of Afgoye, al-Qaeda-linked Somali militants vowed to intensify the war against government and AU troops.
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/ 7 December 2007
Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf said on Friday he was in good health after recovering from a bout of pneumonia, and laughed off a flurry of reports he was near death. ”I’m fine, I am OK,” Yusuf said in an exclusive interview from his hospital bed in Nairobi. ”I had pneumonia, but the doctors have taken it out [treated it] and I am well now,” he said.
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/ 11 October 2007
A suicide bomber drove a pickup truck filled with explosives into a Somali army base, killing himself and two others near a hotel where the prime minister set up temporary headquarters, officials said on Thursday. The explosion late on Wednesday, in the southern town of Baidoa, targeted a base manned mostly by Ethiopian troops.