you are so funny and small minded. Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys is the most radical leader, even more than al shabaab. By the way, al shabaab means the youth and us somalis supported the al shabaab until they started to ally with taliban forces. Many of us in the diaspora started to stop financing them because their closure of all entertainment in mogadishu meant diaspora somalis can no longer go back to somalia.
Anyway, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys saw that it was losing the political war so his group told the military al shabaab to deny involvement with the eritrea group. it is part of his game that you won't understand unless you know our politics. don't you know that aweys told Abu Mansur to seek media attention with al jazeera many months ago to stage the ICU so called "division between moderate and militant wing"??

anyway it seems the only person Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys can always trick is Steve Bloomfield.

same old, same old.
you western journalists never look at the background story.
for regular citizens of east africa, you western journalists are like teenagers guessing about things you have no idea about.
how can you talk about somalia-ethiopia without talking about ogaden, about colonialism, historical hostilities between habeshas and somalis, expansionism, irredentism??

how can you limit yourself like this and still call yourself a journalist??
how can you ignore the basics and report about somalia WITHOUT mentioning the ancient Nile river war (the reason why UN said egypt was helping ICU 2006); WITHOUT mentioning east-west proxies (reason why iran and US are involved); WITHOUT mentioning powerstruggle for future United states of Africa(USA)(the reason why libya is financing rebels everywhere including darfur & mogadishu to make itself appear like peacemaker later on); WITHOUT mentioning saudi wahhabi vs west evangelism war (reason why kenya/ethiopia is becoming more evangelical while somalia and southern ethiopia is becoming for fundamental muslim); WITHOUT mentioning the nation-state vs nationism ideologies in africa (the reason why kenya is keeping its eastern somali terrotories (NFD) while ethnic somali nationalism threatens the status quo of multi-ethnic nation-states in africa); WITHOUT mentioning the battle for the gulf eden, strait and bossosa ports (the reason why europe/america and the arab world have been playing chess games for decades)

how can you ignore all these basic factors of the war in somalia and simply report again and again and again the most obvious stories about somalia???

Patriot, Western Media reports with an agenda. It isn't in their interests to report the entire story. The purpose of the Media is to sell news, not to report on it. If the Media was to report properly on the news, very few would read it. By selectively reporting on the news, you can direct your article to a target audience. For example, this article will be read primarily by people that are apposed to US policies, or those interested in Somalia.

Dear Steve,

I agree with you that your media is much better than other western media outlets. But settling for mediocrity is not something any journalist should seek and honestly the european approach to all "war on terror" front news story by making USA appear like the bogeyman, the common denominator is getting very boring to read. it almost look like a formula that all european and liberal media outlets are following to blame and connect everything back to the evil CIA or USA.

anyway i agree with you that you can't cover everything in 300 to 400 word articles. but WHAT is stopping you from focusing on ONE of the various stories by covering real and background stakeholders of the conflict in mogadishu or the crisis in kenya etc etc??
making USA responsible for everything makes western news appear unprofessional and clueless for the regular african reader. you can do simple research about any of the things i told you on my last post or about other topics. for example, why is kenya helping ethiopia and USA to block ICU?? this is not random stuff. it has historical connection with the secessionist somali region inside kenya called Northern Frontier District (NFD). the NFD in kenya is somali populated and many decades ago they voted FOR separation to join "Greater Somalia" but Jomo Kenyatta government reversed the vote and kept NFD under kenya. that was why kenya and ethiopia have been allies for decades because somalia government has been trying to annex NFD and ogaden for decades until its fall. simple research like this http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1992/BHK.htm gives you an overview of how kenya is a stakeholder against the irridentist declaration of ICU. so you see, it is not just the bogeyman USA doing its war on terror. every stakeholder has its own foreign policy and interests. just like yemen, iran, eritrea, libya, ethiopia, egypt, sudan etc. how did libya and sudan manage to keep embassies despite civil war in mogadishu the last 16 years?? well, libya has its interests to be a player from chad to somalia. and sudan regime is just like egypt by seeking to expand islam upward to central ethiopia due to religious factor and the vital Nile river politics. if you have read news a few weeks ago, egypt and sudan once again rejected the begging of kenya, ethiopia and uganda to share the nile river. despite over 90% of nile river resource flowing out of kenya and ethiopia; egypt and sudan still dominate most of the benefits from nile. that is why the Egyptian government threatened war on ethiopia many years ago. (here is one of the war threats http://chora.virtualave.net/kendie-nile.htm) Hey, even the much demonized military regime of mengistu is labeled "military regime" because he stockpiled massive weapons. why did he do that??? To defend ethiopia from the stronger egypt. (if you don't know egypt has been getting billions of American aid bribery in order to be less anti-Israel inside the Arab league circles so it has been playing bully on kenya and ethiopia for half a century.)
anyway, thats why when the UN security council report in 2006 said libya, egypt and others are helping the ICU, no body in kenya and the region was surprised. So the stakeholders are MANY. Not just in mogadishu conflict but also in the Kenyan NFD and the ethiopian ogaden. in the ogaden, it is even more complex and stakeholders like egypt, saudis and libya are expanding. The indian Ocean Newsletter (ION) last year said libya is using eritrea to finance anti-ethiopia rebels. (you will need to subscribe to get ION articles but here is one copy of the old ION article i found today http://www.kinijit.org/content.asp?contentid=2867) as you know, eritrea is already PROUDLY supporting anti-ethiopia rebels so i think what libya,egypt and others are doing undercover is very very smart politics.
anyway, take a break from demonizing Bush and the CIA for once and report about the real stories in africa where there are many stakeholders in each conflicts. that was what i was saying. i actually do like your Independent news media much better than other western media but it is hard to clap for a "less bad" media.