...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
forces and
al-Shabaab... Harakat ash-Shabaab al-Mujahidin aka the Mujahideen Youth Movement. It was originally the youth movement of the Islamic Courts, now pretty much all of what's left of it. They are aligned with al-Qaeda but operate more like the Afghan or Pakistani Taliban. The organization's current leader is Ibrahim Haji Jama Mee'aad, also known as Ibrahim
al-Afghani. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a Kenyan al-Qaeda member, is considered the group's military leader...
fighters in Mogadishu have left at least 35 people dead.
Twenty Somali soldiers bit the dust in a fierce shootout between al-Shaboobs and transitional government troops in the Hodan district of southern Mogadishu late on Friday.
The skirmishes continued until the crack of dawn, the Press TV correspondent in Mogadishu reported on Saturday.
In addition, 15 non-combatants were killed as the two sides exchanged heavy gunfire and barrages of mortar shells were fired. More than 25 people also sustained injuries during the bloody skirmishes.
Somali ambulance workers said they ferried the maimed to different hospitals in Mogadishu.
Boilerplate follows...
Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
Over the past two decades, up to one million people have bit the dust in the fighting between rival factions and due to famine and disease.
There are more than 1.4 million internally displaced people (IDPs) in Somalia, and over 300,000 IDPs are sheltering in Mogadishu alone.
Most of the displaced live in poor and degrading conditions on makeshift sites in southern and central Somalia, according to the United Nations
...boodling on the grand scale...
High Commissioner for Refugees.