Blowing Them Away Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry
Imagine, for a moment, that you live in a small town somewhere near the Southern California coast. You're going about your daily life, trying to scrape by in hard times, when the missile hits. It might have come from the Iranian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) -- its pilot at a base on the outskirts of Tehran -- that has had the village in its sights for the last six hours or from the Russian sub stationed just off the coast. In either case, it's devastating.

While Democrats Debate the War On Iraq, Bush Widens the War to Somalia
Here's something that didn't come up at Sunday's Democratic debate? Under what authorization did President Bush order a military strike on Somalia this past Friday-- essentially widening the "war on terror"? While the Dems argued about the best way to get out of this failed and disastrous war in Iraq, what Friday's military strike reveals is how our political system continues to evade the challenge of finding an exit from a misconceived "war on terror" --and the damage that "war" continues to inflict on our security and engagement with the world.

Gates says Somalia strike possibly ongoing
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates declined to comment on Sunday about Friday's U.S. naval strike on targets in Somalia, saying it was possibly an ongoing operation. "I think that's possibly an ongoing operation and I'm not going to talk about it," Gates told a news briefing on the sidelines of an Asian security conference, Reuters reported. STORY DEVELOPING...

Briton 'killed in US missile attack in Somalia'
The Foreign Office today said it was investigating reports that a Briton was killed in a US missile attack on suspected Islamist militants in Somalia. The Somali authorities say up to a dozen people were killed when a US warship fired cruise missiles at targets in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland, in northern Somalia on Friday.

'Swede dead' after US strike in Somalia
A Swedish citizen has been reported killed in Somalia following an American air attack against alleged Islamic extremists in the rebel Puntland region.

The US War President Strikes Somalia
The United States has launched air strikes against Islamists in southern Somalia. An AC130 warplane strafed the village of Hayo nearly the Kenyan border late yesterday afternoon leaving "many dead", according to the Somali government. Ras Kamboni, on the country's southernmost tip, was also said to have been hit. Though the US has been mounting covert operations in Somalia in recent years, the attacks amount to its first direct involvement since disastrous "Black Hawk Down" operation during the early 90s.

US Secretly Backing Warlords in Somalia
More than a decade after U.S. troops withdrew from Somalia following a disastrous military intervention, officials of Somalia's interim government and some U.S. analysts of Africa policy say the United States has returned to the African country, secretly supporting secular warlords who have been waging fierce battles against Islamic groups for control of the capital, Mogadishu. Most of Somalia is in anarchy, ruled by a patchwork of competing warlords; the capital is too unsafe for even Somalia's acting prime minister to visit. Leaders of the transitional government said they have warned U.S. officials that working with the warlords is shortsighted and dangerous. "We would prefer that the U.S. work with the transitional government and not with criminals," the prime minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, said in an interview.