19 May London Times - Is U.S. Using Enemy to Fight a Proxy War?.

... in Somalia, where rising turmoil has killed 150 in the past month, the interim government has accused the US of sliding quietly back into the fray on the warlords’ side, more than a decade after they drove out US forces.

The Somali government claims that the US is backing the kind of warlords who were its old enemy, and who make the country ungovernable, to keep al-Qaeda, its worse enemy, at bay.

This week two senior spokesmen from the Bush Administration refused to answer direct questions about US backing, but acknowledged fears that al-Qaeda would profit from the chaos. “In an environment of instability, al-Qaeda may take root. We want to make sure that al-Qaeda does not establish a beachhead in Somalia,” Tony Snow, White House spokesman, said...

To credit Somalia with a “government” is stretching a point; it has only a United Nations-backed gesture of hope. For 15 years, since the overthrow of Mohammed Siad Barre, the long-time dictator, Somalia has had no central rule.

The interim government, headed by President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, clings to the shadow of power, but must meet in neighbouring Kenya or in the southern town of Baidoa, as Mogadishu is too dangerous...