U.S. getting snared again in Somalia: "Despite U.S. reluctance to get entangled again in the free-for-all conflict in Somalia, Washington is slowly being caught up in fighting Islamist militants in the lawless Horn of Africa state.
The United States is has been arming the beleaguered Transitional Federal Government penned up in war-ravaged Mogadishu on Somalia's Indian Ocean coast since it was set up, with Ethiopian military support, in December 2006.
Now, as the TFG gets ready for a long-delayed offensive against the Islamists, the United States is getting ready to provide air support and says the fledgling Africa Command is training government troops as well.
The Americans view Somalia -- along with increasingly lawless Yemen across the Gulf of Aden -- as a haven for al-Qaida and its fellow travelers that could threaten both the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa."
