Islamist advance seen to threaten a wider conflict
By John Donnelly, Globe Staff September 28, 2006
WASHINGTON -- Africa specialists criticized the Bush administration yesterday for not paying more attention to the increasingly volatile situation in Somalia, saying that senior officials were consumed by their efforts to stop the fighting in the Darfur region of Sudan.
In Somalia, Islamist militias have taken one town after another in the south-central part of the fractured nation since capturing the de facto capital Mogadishu in June. Now, they appear poised to attack the small town of Baidoa near the country's western border with Ethiopia.
Baidoa is the base of the increasingly powerless Somali transitional federal government, which is backed by the United States and Ethiopia. Analysts predict that if the Islamists attack the town, which appears likely, the conflict could evolve into a wider war with Ethiopia. [Full story here]
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