This is the way I see today´s Somalia

It is my understanding that we are sliding back to yet another civil war quite similar to the one we have been fighting over the past 17 years. The current deadlock between the TFG President and the Prime Minister, the emboldened Shabaab insurgency and their renewed attacks in certain towns and villages, the rift and subsequent split of Islamic groups, the prospects of Ethiopian withdrawal from Somalia (which is widely spoken in the streets but largely muted in government circles) and their likelihood of leaving some of their armory to the failed warlords, the unyielding reconciliation conferences which pour like a rain but never wet anywhere, the tardy response of some AU nations to send troops to Somalia, the fading hope of a possible recovery from past horrors, the UN BIG NO of sending troops to Somalia, the escalating sea piracy and the acts of terror to target journalists and aid workers--- all constitute the onset of an ugly scenario in Somalia.

It seems that clouds of despair are hovering in the somali political skies. And sadly enough, every bullet shot by either side of the conflict, takes the life of an innocent civilian, not that of a warlord or those involved in the fire exchange. 8000 people have so far died in the war since the intervention of the Ethiopian forces in Somalia some 20 months ago while millions have been displaced from their original locations. And apart from that, a humanitarian catastrophe has erupted like volcano with 3.2 million people who depended on food donations are now on the verge of extinction. A high percentage of these populations hail from the minority clans who, unlike those from armed tribes, have no economic fallback. They are experiencing a slow death of genocide proportions systematically designed to wipe them out from face of the earth as if their existence is a threat to the existence of other groups.

Worse still, the indifference of the world to the plight of the Somalis is extremely depressing. America wanted to either kill or capture Al-qaeda elements suspected to be hiding in Somalia and from the pieces of information surfacing in some websites, we learn that two of the top most wanted foreign alqaeda members have been killed in the midnight US air raids. If that is true , then the Somalia Chapter of America´s war on terror is drawing to a close and Ethiopia, a country hardly able to feed its own people, should pull out as it can not afford to fight one of the most expensive wars in Africa. Therefore, Ethiopian government must sit for a brainstorming session to come up with a viable strategy to leave Somalia before getting trapped in a situation of increased chaos and religious polarization.

Out of this complicated political setting a question of "Where will this leave the TFG?" will bounce. I don´t think that the TFG leaders have any answer to this question as they have never anticipated that their unholy alliance with Ethiopia will ever make any breaks anywhere.

I think the best advice we can give to the TFG is put aside its differences and focus a way they can bring all somali parties to a negotiating table and move forward to set up a broad-based government which can offer a room to all sides of the conflict. I still see a glimmer of hope to save Somalia. But, upon withdrawal of Ethiopian troops, if TFG lies on its back like a patient whose life supporting machine is switched off, then there will be no solution but strife and chaos will reign high in the country much the same way as it is now, or worse. Various tribal and factional militia will storm into Villa Somalia well before the last Ethiopian soldier leaves Mogadishu. The country will go one more round of a disastrous civil conflict with itself. That is my opinion.