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Originally published in The National: As famine continues to devastate southern Somalia, much attention has been directed to its political causes – in particular, the Islamist group Al Shabaab. Parts of Kenya and Ethiopia have been equally affected by drought, and they are facing humanitarian emergencies, but southern Somalia is the only place to have […]
September 5, 2010
Originally published in GlobalPost: BUNGOMA, Kenya — These days, Somalia is known for two things: its pirates and its Islamic militants. When Al Shabaab, the extremist Islamic insurgents based in southern Somalia, claimed responsibility for the July bombings that killed 78 people in Kampala, international concern over the problem of Somalia spiked. Somalia’s transitional federal […]
June 24, 2010
Originally published in GlobalPost: BUNGOMA, Kenya — Spring is the height of piracy season off the coast of Somalia. Since 2008, when attacks accelerated in the Gulf of Aden, every few months brings news of a big hijacking — from the oil supertanker Sirius Star in 2008 to the U.S.-manned Maersk Alabama in 2009 to […]
January 2, 2010
Originally published in GlobalPost: TYAZO, Rwanda — Africa tends to burst into international news whenever a new conflict starts or an old one resurges. Africans across the continent lament this crisis coverage, complaining that the positive trends and stories in Africa go unnoticed. However in June 2010, the soccer World Cup will descend on South […]
April 23, 2009
Introduction Maritime piracy has been on the rise for years, according to the International Maritime Bureau’s (IMB) Piracy Reporting Center. But until 2008, when pirates operating off the coast of Somalia hijacked a ship full of Russian tanks and an oil supertanker, the crime drew limited international attention. By early 2009, more than a dozen […]
February 27, 2009
Originally published on CFR.org: Introduction Al-Shabaab (aka the Harakat Shabaab al-Mujahidin, al-Shabab, Shabaab, the Youth, Mujahidin al-Shabaab Movement, Mujahideen Youth Movement, Mujahidin Youth Movement), is an Islamic organization that controls much of southern Somalia, excluding the capital, Mogadishu. It has waged an insurgency against Somalia’s transitional government and its Ethiopian supporters since 2006. Originally the […]
May 12, 2008
Originally published on CFR.org: Introduction On January 8, 2007, Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed set foot in the capital city of Mogadishu for the first time since taking office in 2004. His arrival symbolized a victory by Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG) over the Islamic Courts, a group of fundamentalist Islamic militias that had grown […]
Stephanie Hanson 
August 24, 2011
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