From the Swiss-based ISN, 16 June: Washington's tactical error in Somalia
After 15 years of relative anarchy - with warlords controlling much of the country and an impotent-at-best interim government that was forced to hide itself away 250 kilometers from the capital city - the Islamic militias have won control of Mogadishu and the last key warlord strongholds.

This has come to fruition despite US backing for the warlords' opportunistically named "Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism" - an alliance the majority of the population has grown to loathe for being synonymous with violence, complete lawlessness, and chaos.

Aside from stoking the fires of anti-American sentiment and creating enemies out of potential allies in a geostrategically significant location, Washington is being blamed by African and Western diplomats for the four months of bloodshed that ended in the Islamic militias' victory and claimed the lives of some 350 people, mostly civilians...