The news about Somalia can be confusing from far away because different vocabularies are used to describe the multi-faceted conflict occurring there. Its chief players are the Somalian Transitional Federal Government and the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC). This battle engages other local players and histories: secular warlords, neighboring countries, the United States, and foreign jihadists. The U.S. thinks of the Union of Islamic Courts as terrorist because they are Islamist, so the news in the U.S. about events in Somalia is told from the point of view of the war on terror.
Somalia
Somalia juts out of the eastern coast of Africa, where it borders the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. It shares borders with Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya. The capital is Mogadishu. Somalia has been governed since 2004 by a Transitional Federal Government (called the TFG), which is supported by the United States. However, powerful warlords, among other forces, have kept Somalia unstable.