We shouldn't be talking as we don't know what we would'v done, you should know that if he said no or fought back the Prince could've and would've killed/tortured his parents/kids/brothers & sisters. Wallah these goverments are to corrupt.

Subhanallah, within a hundred years Xamar, Kismaayo, Marka, Bosaso etc. would be under water. Also read this: Sea Level Rise Of One Meter Within 100 Years http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090108101629.htm I can't understand why people choose to ignore this, because if and thats a IF there is peace in Somalia within the next 50 years the situation will only get harder because we as a country/ heck a region are not prepared for climate change. If the floods do come, the country will be so weak that any foreign power will be able to take over and nobody will even notice it.

Nairobi (kilil5)--Even a small rise in the world's sea levels, predicted as a result of global warming, could submerge most of Somalia's coastal towns according to the world bank report. The towns most at risk of going under water are mogadishu,Bosaso, Kismayo,and most of all somalia's small towns along the coast. According to the world banks economist, this will create unparallel number of environmental refugees not only in Somalia, but, a number of third world countries. Most experts are predicting that global warming caused by green house gases emited by industrial countries,will have significant impact to third world countires such as Somalia. The horn of Africa already feels the impact of global warming as the region already experiences frequent droughts, and unpredictable weather as the recently floods, which killed more than 500 people showed. The unexpected quick melting of the arctic ice has alarmed scientis. In East Africa, the melting of old century ice in mount kilimanjaro and mount kenya, has significantly affected already wildlife and climate patterns in kenya and Uganda. However,it is the rise of Sea level as a result of arctic ice melting and the increased temperature of the world, that will have significant, life altering experience in many coastal towns in the world, more so in poor countries such as Somalia. Many of the rich countries are prepared to deal with global warming better than third world countries which are totally not prepared for it. In the United States and in Europe, towns that could potentially be affected by rising sea levels are already planning for it. According to experts, a one metre rise in the sea level, as forecast in some scientific models, most of Somalia's towns could potentially be lost to the Sea. This is alarming given that half of Somalia's population, lives in big cities bordering the coast. According to the prediction, Mogadishu, the biggest city with a sixth of the country's population, will be lost to the sea. "Knowing which countries will be most affected could allow better targeting of scarce available resources and could spur vulnerable nations to develop national adaptation plans now and avoid big losses later," Dasgupta said. Adaptation plans include heading for higher ground and building dams to keep the water out. She cited a Feb. 2 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a consensus document crafted by hundreds of scientists and policy makers, which said sea levels will keep rising for centuries even if greenhouse gas concentrations -- blamed for spurring global warming --were stabilized now. She also noted that global average sea levels rose more rapidly from 1993 to 2003 than they did from 1961 through 2003, which was faster than climate models projected. By 2100, Dasgupta said, sea levels are projected to rise 1.6 feet to 4.6 feet (0.5 metre to 1.4 metre) above 1990 levels. With every additional 39 inch (1 metre) rise in sea level, consequences for specific areas can be calculated, she said. Here are some of the prediction for other parts of the world according to the report: -- A a 6.6 foot (2 metre) rise would inundate 22 percent of Mexico's wetlands. -- A 9.8 foot (3 metre) rise would hit 17 percent of Mauritania's gross domestic product. -- A 13 foot (4 metre) rise would submerge 35 percent of Vietnam's urban areas. -- a 16.4 foot (5 metre) rise would force 16.7 million people in Bangladesh to become refugees. The loss of the Greenland ice sheet alone would raise sea level by nearly 23 feet (7 metres), Dasgupta's report said

That was a epic fail, Shabab are better when they're defending something rather than attacking.

^ Wallahi Duke, I can't take you serious anymore, do you know how many times you've said??? According to you Shabaabs days are numbered each year.

DADAAB, Kenya — Ethiopian refugees in Kenya say they are being tricked into joining a government security force in a violent region of Ethiopia, and that their families face retaliation if they refuse. Ethiopia's government says it is unaware of anyone coercing refugees to return or join the new police force it set up in the volatile eastern ****** region, which borders chaotic Somalia and is home to a long-simmering rebellion led by Ethiopians of Somali origin. Putting a local face on Ethiopia's security forces — which Human Rights Watch accused of rape, torture and executions in a 2008 report — is essential to clinching a peace deal with a faction of the rebels. A rebel spokesman said the deal could be reached this month. The refugees, though, say abuses are still happening, and that many of them are being tricked or coerced into joining the new police force. "Whenever (the recruiters) meet a young man, they say if you don't go with us, your family (in Ethiopia) will be beaten," said 27-year-old Nur, a refugee who says he fled to neighbouring Kenya nearly two years ago after Ethiopian troops killed his brother and uncle. Nur said about 10 of his friends have joined the new force. The recruits are lured by the promise of money and an escape from this dusty refugee camp in eastern Kenya, and are frightened by threats to their families. Nur and 16 other Ethiopian refugees interviewed by The Associated Press late last month asked that their full names not be used to protect them from reprisals. All but one said they had either been recruited, approached by recruiters, or had seen family members join. The refugees said that recruiters promise money and either a job or the opportunity to go and see how peaceful the region is before returning with their families. Such offers can be enticing. Even a little cash is a fortune in the Dadaab camps because the Kenyan government prohibits refugees from leaving or seeking work. The recruits travel in groups of up to 25 by vehicle to the border and then to the Ethiopian town of Suf. There they are given uniforms, guns and training, said the deserters, who said they got some of their information from men who had stayed. Ethiopia is a military powerhouse in East Africa and a U.S. ally in the fight against al-Qaida-linked insurgents in neighbouring Somalia. Last year it received $865 million in U.S. aid, plus an unpublished amount for counter-terrorism assistance. It also has a history of forcing its citizens to join pro-government forces, said Leslie Lefkow, a researcher at Human Rights Watch. She said she has heard dozens of stories of forced recruitment. Family members could be beaten, detained or forced to pay money if they couldn't furnish a recruit, she said. That's what Abdisalam, 38, said happened after he rescued his younger brother and two friends from the recruiters. "They threatened to kill me," Abdisalam said quietly, as he sat hidden from the baking sun and prying eyes in the mud-walled sitting room of a local youth leader. Less than a week after he persuaded his brother to return to the overcrowded Dadaab camp, their sister in Ethiopia was jailed. Family members were told it was in retaliation for her brother's "anti-government" activities. "They said I am a rebel and working against the government," he said. "I told them I'm only saving my brother. Now my sister is in jail. The war that we fled has followed us and we are not safe anywhere." Ethiopia government spokesman Shimeles Kemal confirmed that the government was talking to one rebel faction and regional authorities had founded a new police force in the ****** aimed at "mopping up" the rest of the rebels. But he said he was unaware of any recruitment by government agents in refugee camps. "That's not possible," he said. "It's not in line with the principles of the regional government ... I have no knowledge of such incidents." The rebel ****** National Liberation Front, founded in 1984, accuses the ethnically Tigray-dominated government of starving Ethiopia's ethnically Somali region of resources and killing its residents. The conflict is also complicated by clan loyalties. "They are going to claim they have an agreement with the ONLF (rebels) soon," said Abdirahman Mahdi, a London-based rebel spokesman. "Their strategy before was to recruit militias and fight us. This is a new strategy because there is a lot of pressure from the international community for a settlement but people are still very angry." Mahdi said his faction of the ONLF would not negotiate unless another country was willing to act as a credible guarantor. In Dadaab, many refugees say they no longer believe peace is possible. Among them was a woman who arrived to speak to AP veiled from head to foot. She was too fearful even to give her first name. Through a translator, the woman said that five months ago Ethiopian forces came to her home in the ******. They killed the men, she said, and gang-raped the women before throwing them into a fire. After the translator stepped outside, she disrobed in the fading light, pressing a journalist's hand against the bands of puckered burn tissue across her torso. "I can't forget what happened," she said later. "How can I trust the government speaking of peace?"

Minister of what goverment? They hardly control the capital, this whole issue is a joke.

Wallahi the Ethiopians make Shabaab look like cats and mice, some time ago after the ONLF ambushed the Ethiopians in the region of my town, the Ethiopians went to the town killed 3 random elders and left their bodies in the city centre, warning that the same would happen to anyone that removed the bodies..Acuudubillahi from these devils. As for the prison release, we can even call it Xabashi culture that for each person they release another one is arrested.

Saxib problem is that most towns are so small that you can take over within a day, something that is impossible to do in lets say Mogadishu. Thats why we see this tit-for-tat captures of areas.

Although I'm against Shabab (in general) they have brought stability and peace to the southern regions. I can't understand why you people are so happy with the forthcoming bloodshed, its easy for you to speak as you're all living in the West, but for the people in Somalia, I think they'd have Shabab peace rather than no peace at all.

^ lol at 40 historic cities, does it really matter how many cities we HAD, its about what we have today. And that's nothing. Sure Merca looks nice from the outside, and maybe even inside but non of the Somalis cities today look like a propper city. But don't become angry because cities like Beirut, Algiers, Rabat etc. were designed by the Europeans aswell.

Although some of the above happen in Southern Somalia, having Foreign troops will only escelate the trouble. The Ajanib will just further us into chaos and destruction.

^ haha, so true wallahi, I think Somalis aren't talented in building cities, they keep on saying magaalo but in reality their biggest city probably equals the area I live in now. Mogadishu looks so nice because the Italians build it.

It's not an African problem but a Somali one, Africans are aliens to Somalis like Russians to Chechens. Soon enough we'll be hearing of rape, and Africans bombing civilian areas in Somalia. Shabab will just launch a guerilla war against the AU winning in the end.

I was actually laughing, I got great respect for Somaliland and all but honestly in all those years and Hargeisa still looks like some kind of 3rd world little village. it's the same problem where I'm from, we build a house in the middle of the desert and call it development. I think Somaliland will really grow only when/if its recognized.

^ Exactly, now his group will become more legit, as they'll (only?) be fighting the African Union troops. And with Somalia do they mean the entire country, or just Mogadishu (like always)!

Qat – The Multi-Million Dollar Battle It is a busy day here at the Qat stalls located just on the outskirts of the Bakara market. Hundreds of sandalled feet scuttle towards the stalls, in tumultuous excitement, and frantically rummage through the tightly bundled leaves in the hand-woven Qat baskets in order to pick out the moist, tender shoots. Scores of young men and women visit these stalls on a regular basis to purchase Qat – a mild stimulant with a bitter taste that a large number of the Somali population – in Somalia or abroad – is highly addicted to. Under the commotion and the emotional frenzy, tensions often rise and agitated customers as well as vendors seem to always be in a combative mood. But perspiring under the heat, the wide-eyed, and almost anaemic, Qat-sellers appear to be relishing this kind of atmosphere. ‘Hurry up Waryaa! hurry up! this is the cheapest you can get. Hurry up! Qat is almost out of stock!’ screams one seller, as he wipes away the trickles of green saliva dripping down his chin with a grubby handkerchief. Behind him, dozens of young men sit on the concrete slabs, or squat on the floor, unmindful of the staccato rounds of gunfire in the distant neighbourhoods, and gnaw away at the leaves in a surrounding far less salubrious than can be appreciated. This is a very loud and unforgiving place. Bestrewn with dry twigs, discarded leaves and plastic bags, these squalid stalls, adjacent to the old Cigarettes and Match Factory, receive hundreds of customers a day, but they have now become even increasingly populated since Al-Shabab’s closure of KM 50 airport yesterday. The KM 50 airport was, until now, the largest Qat depot in Somalia. Located in the Lower Shabeelle region, near Afgooye, the airport received an average of 7 plane loads of Qat a day, adding an estimated $1,500,000 a day to the Kenyan economy. The cargo would then distributed to all the cities in Southern/Central Somalia and to individual sellers. The Islamists’ decision to forbid the landing of Qat planes at the airport is by far the toughest verdict, in their long list of punitive measures against the stimulant, to be meted out to the Qat merchants in Somalia, and consumers alike. But how will this decision affect the people of Southern Somalia? Qat is considered an illegal substance in the regions controlled by the Islamists. In the regions under Al-Shabab the selling of these bundles of leaves is completely prohibited in small towns and villages, whereas in the densely populated cities, such as Kismayo, Marka, Mogadishu, Hiiran, etc, they have designated special selling places, usually outside the city centre, hoping, I presume, that by stigmatising the stimulant and making it difficult to purchase, people would be less addicted to it. The consumption of Qat is deeply entrenched within the Somali society, albeit gradually diminishing, but now with the airport closed off to the trade, many Somalis remain uncertain of how things will shape up in the future for the Qat industry. For the merchants, however, very few alternatives remain. ‘The alternatives’ The cost-effectiveness of the operation and the safety aspects were one of the main reasons why the Qat merchants preferred to use the KM 50 airport. With no cumbersome taxes collected at the airport, no extortionate prices being paid to the militia blocking the roads and no gun-wielding bandits along the way, the Qat merchants and distributors operated with some level of assurance in the Islamist controlled areas that their goods would be delivered to all the cities in Southern Somalia with relative ease. But now with the airport closed off and Qat planes no longer allowed to land at the KM 50, the merchants are left with only two options, both equally unpleasant: Adan Adde International airport, Mogadishu’s main airport, or Jaziira airport, an unused make-shift runway south of Mogadishu. Both are controlled by the government and both have dreadful consequences. ‘Possible Consequences’ Qat merchants unloading their planes at Mogadishu airport will have some disastrous consequences in the pursuance of their business. The economic burden, in the form of taxes, on the part of the traders will be exceeded by the pandemonium it may cause at the airport. The government will have to control not only the safety of the airport at this heightened state of fear in the city but also the flow of Qat. corruption is rife here and Qat is considered a currency in Somalia. But Jaziira airport – the former stronghold of warlord Muuse Sudi Yalaxow – does not offer a viable alternative either. Located in a sparsely populated sea-side settlement chiefly occupied by fishermen, the runway is not a good option, from a logistical perspective, for the merchants to land their goods. By using this runway the distributors must drive through several kilometres of unguarded woodlands before reaching Madina district – an area plagued by armed robbery and extortionate government checkpoints. The risk of transporting the leaves from this airport is more hazardous in comparison to any other part of the country. But what makes the arrival of Qat in the government controlled territory even more burdensome is that most, if not the entire, Somali army is addicted to the drug. Some are even willing to kill for it. Then, of course, there are the economic consequences of these two alternatives. ‘Economic repercussions’ The expensive taxes collected at Mogadishu’s airports, coupled with the difficulty of having to pay individual checkpoints exorbitant prices means that there will undoubtedly be an increase in the price of Qat. The multi-million dollar Qat industry is a lucrative business not only in Somalia but primarily in Kenya and Ethiopia – the two main exporters of Qat in East Africa. Almost all of the Qat that reaches Southern Somalia comes today from Kenya, whereas Ethiopia is the main supplier of Somaliland and Puntland in the North. As one of its largest exports, the millions of dollars generated in revenue by the Qat industry in Kenya every month is now in jeopardy. Due to the severity of the situation on the ground and the complexities surrounding Somalia’s multi-faceted political environment, the merchants might decide to stop importing Qat and thereby flushing the multi-million dollar industry down the drain. The expensiveness of the operation of transportation of Qat to Somalia could also act as an impediment to the industry, eventually resulting in its total discontinuation. The pressure is on both the Somali as well as the Kenyan government to find a speedy solution to the problem. Whatever happens though, the coming weeks will test the patience and of both the Qat traders and consumers, though many of the Somali civilians would be far happier to do away with the shrub altogether. In the mean time, it is safe to say, without debating the virtues and vices of the stimulant, that to cure the ills of Qat in the Somali society will be a very long and difficult struggle. SOURCE: Mogadishu Man Blog I have to say Mogadishu Man is THE best Somali blog out there, I think he's the only blogger inside Somalia (unlike us Quxooti )

What we need is a proper Somali tv Channel that can give us the latest information. I'm getting tired of going from website to website, one claiming Shabab retreated and another claiming that Shabab took over Riyadh :_

Many Muslim scholars believe that either Cyrus or Alexander the Great were Dhul-Qarnayn so he might have been Muslim Allahu A'lam.

I think Shabab will lose IF the majority of the city is Sufi, if not Allahu A'lam what might happen.

They didn't attack, sorry I meant sabotaged it. (the electrical supplies).

Jacaylbaro, the Somaliland goverment are thugs like the Arab goverments! The Arab goverments have betrayed one another, and Somaliland has betrayed the OG, even giving women to the Secret Services of Ethiopia.. And to be honest, if they decided to give money to Somaliland, you wouldn't stop worshipping them.

Mad Mullah was a nickname chosen by the British because the Sayyid was 'crazy' which is something good in War. Secondly I'm from Godey.

Nobody will revive this script, typicall Somalis, working on a script while we don't have a goverment.

Arab + Somali = will get half Somali half Arab, their children will marry Somalis so quarter Arab, their children will marry Somalis again etc. At the end you won't be able to tell the difference between them and pure Somalis.