Somalis may be leaving Minn. for jihad, USA Today reports

Fikirka Xorta ah - MINNEAPOLIS — Mohamud Ali Hassan once told the Somali grandmother who raised him that he'd become a doctor and care for her.

The Somali immigrant, who moved to the "Land of 10,000 Lakes" when he was 8, had good grades at the University of Minnesota and called Muslims to prayer at his mosque, where he also slept during the holy month of Ramadan.

But on Nov. 1, Hassan disappeared, as have a dozen other boys and young men here — two days after another young Muslim from Minnesota blew himself up as a suicide bomber in Somalia.

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A short path, from Gaza to Somalia

Fikirka Xorta ah - As the defined period for the Gaza cease-fire comes to an end today, preceded by a new cycle of violence, Israelis are being treated to a predictable dose of political posturing and chest-thumping. "We must do something, exact a price," we hear. Yes, the rocket fire needs to stop, but there is no military answer to this predicament.

To recap: For most of the six months of the cease-fire, relative quiet prevailed, and life returned to near-normal for the residents of Sderot and environs (though not for Gazans, who remained under siege). Then on November 4, an Israeli operation sparked a new round of dangerous, if controlled, violence - characterized by occasional Israeli strikes and incursions, matched by Palestinian rockets and shooting across the border.

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Impeachment Proceedings Begun Against Somali Leader

Fikirka Xorta ah - Somalia's parliament voted Wednesday to begin impeachment proceedings against President Abdullahi Yusuf, another sign that his U.S.-backed government is unraveling.

"This is the end of the government. This is it," said Mohamed Amin, a member of an opposition coalition that has a majority in parliament.

Yusuf's government began disintegrating almost from the start two years ago, when it was installed with the might of the Ethiopian army and help from the United States.

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Shift attention to Somaliland

Fikirka Xorta ah - The situation in the Horn of Africa is rapidly reaching crisis proportions and specifically United States policy towards the one time Somali Democratic Republic needs to be reformulated on the basis of something other than the series of unrealistic assumptions on which it has hitherto been predicated.

Recent events have underscored the deteriorating security conditions faced by the international community as a whole as well as by the Somali and their neighbours, it is time to concentrate on Somaliland, the one part of that geopolitically sensitive space where there is still a peace to be preserved.

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Chasing Pirates Into Somalia Gets Approval From UN

Fikirka Xorta ah - The U.S. will take the lead in coordinating efforts to combat piracy coming from Somali territory, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said after the United Nations authorized the inland pursuit of brigands.

The Security Council voted 15-0 to adopt a U.S.-drafted text that permits all nations and regional organizations -- with the consent of Somalia’s provisional government -- to “take all necessary measures that are appropriate” to deter piracy.

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Somalia’s President Appoints New Premier: Kenya to impose sunctions on Somali President

Fikirka Xorta ah - Somalia’s transitional government plunged into deeper turmoil on Tuesday when the country’s president defied the Parliament by appointing a new prime minister and the Kenyan government reacted by threatening sanctions.

President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, a former warlord who is steadily losing credibility among diplomats and foreign officials, had tried to unseat the prime minister earlier this week. The parliament overwhelmingly rebuffed him. So on Tuesday, Mr. Yusuf announced that he had unilaterally selected another prime minister, who would be in charge of forming a new government, which Mr. Yusuf would swear in himself.

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Analysis: To Beat Somalia's Pirates, Fix Their Country

Fikirka Xorta ah - One of the world's worst humanitarian disasters, Islamic terrorism and rampant human trafficking have all failed to draw the world's interest to Somalia. The return of piracy to the high seas, however, has.

The Somali pirates have attacked more than 100 vessels in the waters leading to and from the Suez Canal this year, and earned tens of millions of dollars in ransom. Today they are holding 17 ships with around 300 crew members off the Somali coast.

And at a weekend security conference organized by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Bahrain, headquarters to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, opinion appeared unanimous: to fix the pirates, fix Somalia. "We haven't been as involved in Somalia as we should have been," Britain's Defence Secretary John Hutton told the BBC. "This is the consequence."

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Terror suspect's case drags on 5 years after arrest in Minneapolis

Fikirka Xorta ah - Mohamed Abdullah Warsame's pretrial detention is one of the longest for a terror-related case since 9/11, raising questions about how the courts handle such cases.

On a cold December morning five years ago, FBI agents knocked on the door of a basement apartment in northeast Minneapolis, and Mohamed Abdullah Warsame answered.

He let the agents in to talk, and later they took him to another location to talk more. He hasn't been home since.

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Pirates in Skiffs Still Outmaneuvering Warships Off Somalia

Fikirka Xorta ah - ON THE ARABIAN SEA — Rear Adm. Giovanni Gumiero is going on a pirate hunt.

From the deck of an Italian destroyer cruising the pirate-infested waters off Somalia’s coast, he has all the modern tools at his fingertips — radar, sonar, infrared cameras, helicopters, a cannon that can sink a ship 10 miles away — to take on a centuries-old problem that harks back to the days of schooners and eye patches.

“Our presence will deter them,” the admiral said confidently.

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