http://www.salon.com/news/somalia/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/07/16/america_in_somaliaWriting in the Nation this week, Jeremy Scahill revealed that the CIA is running "a counterterrorism training program for Somali intelligence agents and operatives" at Mogadishu’s airport and also using a secret prison in the beleaguered Horn of Africa nation.
The revelations come just two weeks after media reports -- sourced to unnamed American officials -- of a U.S. drone attack in Somalia on members of the Islamic militant group Shabaab, which was designated a terrorist organization by the State Department in 2008.
The Washington Post noted that Somalia is now the sixth country -- joining Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen -- where the Obama administration has launched drone attacks.
For context on the secret war in Somalia, I spoke to Daveed Gartenstein-Ross of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. A regular lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School, he studies Shabaab and recently wrote about the strategic implications of the historic drought that is devastating communities across the Horn of Africa.