Residents have reported today that the al-Shabaab insurgency has captured the strategically vital town of Jowhar in southeastern Somalia. The town connects the Somali capital city of Mogadishu to the towns of central Somalia.
The Islamic rebel factions have taken an ever growing portion of the nation out of the control of the western-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG), and as has been the case several times previously the government is on the verge of collapse. It has also put Western designs on the nation, in particularly an anti-piracy method, in jeopardy.
The United Nations Security Council yesterday declined to rule out the idea of sending a UN military force to Somalia on a “peacekeeping” mission. At present the TFG government is being supported by a small and largely ineffective African Union force, and it previously had the support of a massive US-backed invasion by the Ethiopian government.