Foreign Policy In Focus by Stephen Zunes, January 11, 2002
[Source] The east African nation of Somalia is being mentioned with increasing frequency as a possible next target in the U.S.-led war against international terrorism. Somalia is a failed state–with what passes for the central government controlling little more than a section of the national capital of Mogadishu, a separatist government in the north, and rival warlords and clan leaders controlling most of the remainder of the country. U.S. officials believe cells of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network may have taken advantage of the absence of governmental authority to set up operation…