African Union troops in the Somali capital have pushed back Islamist fighters

As a British Somali I am both sadened and disturbed at what is being done to the Somali people of Mogudishu and Southern Somalia - genocide. It is both clear and well known the America, AU, EU and the UN do not want Somalia to be Stable or the Somalis to have a country, but instead, want death, displacment, destituion, and destruction.

There are 8,000 African soldiers in Mogudishu, but there is no UN body based in the city and the fact is the UN representive to Somalia (Augustine Mahiga ) knows it is not in their intention to help the Somali people to have a state, but instead their interest is to keep Somalia remaining as it is.

These soliders (Ugandan and Burindins) are not 'peace keepers', but are instead commiting the most henious crimes against the Unarmed women and children Somali civilians ( who can not afford to leave becase of ill health or no money).

As a result you have the world's largest humantarian crisis, displaced people in the world. But the UN wil not even come to Mogudishu where it can be protected - that is how serious they are about the Somali suffering.

As for America and the Eu they have given the free licence to these Ugandan and Buridin soliders ( who were collected from the Congo where they had commited rapes and genocide)to commite the same crimes and attrocities with impunity - constant shelling of civilians, rape, firing mortars into markets.

re "genocide against Somali people":

The reason there are minimal services being provided by the UN is the destructive behavior of Al-Shabab. It's hard to pass out food and run educational facilities when illiterate, religiously-inspired fanatics run amok committing every sin possible in the name of God. It's people such as yourself who never should have been given asylum in the West. You see only fault in "others" but refuse to see the true cause of Somalia's desperate poverty. Strange too how the only Somalians who return from their pampered lives in the West to Somalia seem to do so to kill, not to nurture. Maybe you are different; I don't know.

dtmurphy you are giving the impression as if I support al-shabab and Hizbul Islam - the criminals who are murdering and destroying their own people. I do not and infact I would personally love to see them at the Hague or some international court and executed.

I am giving you the tue picture and what is the reality, but you seem to hurl personal insults at me.

As you know I am Somali who is in his late 20's, and has seen what has been happening to Somalia and the Somali people for practically all my life.

There has been no country in it's current position - other than Somalia- in the 20th and 21st century.

There has to be reasons, and the reasons can not be that Somalis like fighting, but international meddeling at the grand scale (US, Ethiopia, EU and African countries.

The plight, suffering, dehumanisation , displacement of the Somali people does not matter to them (whether women, children, elderly), their interest come before human value.

Okay, you are right in some way and some of it is Somali's making ( The union of British Somaliland and Somalia, the ill thought out removal of Syiad Barre). But how many nations or people made mistakes in history - the Rwandan genocide, Germany in world war 2, Italy, Liberia, Serria Leon..so on- but have been made to pay and exploited at a huge cost.

The international community always sides with ethiopia and give it the green light to play games with Somalia, and makes stupide excuses that it is for its stability. As you are aware, Ethiopia is a nation of nearly 100 million people, with 80 different ethnic and nationalies. Somalis only form a small percentage of 6% and a population of 4.1 million people. So how can we be a threat Ethiopia, it is crazy. The fact is it is diguise and an excuse for tiny minority ( Triginys) to exploit, dictate and violate the human rights of Oromo people who have been seeking independence and justice for the past century.

As for these Ugandan and Burindin soliders, I am telling what 9 million voicless Somalis are saying. All you have to do is looking Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reports for the past 2 years on shelling of unarmed women and children in Bakaraa market. So far in the past 18 months 5,200 civilians have been killed as a result of this.

dtmurphy let me also tell you this: The mayor of Mogudishu, is from London, and the reason he come back is to help the city in which he was born in, and he repeated dozen of times that he wants to international community to help the Somali people get of the mess they are in. So too did the new prime minister make the same appeals.

What is the internation community response: We will train 1,000 to 2,000 rifle men and lightly armed them, and they will be able to control Mogudishu and the rest of nine Somalis. The training is un co-ordinated, there no sergents who will take control of them, some are trained in Uganda, others in Kenya and the rest in Djibout. Their monthly pay is about $50 a month. Once they are arrive in Mogudishu, they will be under no command, because no training of sergents or commanders was included in the package. How crazy can that be, and that shows how serious they about helping the poor people of Southern Somalia.

The second thing is that the UN special envoy for Somalia (Augustine Mahiga) and the UN Security Council have asked for complete arms embargo on Somalia, and the completed air and sea blocked of the Somali territory.

These two things serves special purposes: The first is by the Somlai goverment not having no serious soliders ( realistic amount of 20,00 -40000), and no weapons (tanks, mortars, vehicles, hard weapons), the TFG will always be weak, the war will prolong, US, Ethiopia and other African nations will always be able to arm millitias, meddle in Somali affairs and keep Somalia as it is.

By not having any embassies, UN offices, human right organisations or NGOs based in Mogudishu, the true cost and impact the of misery the hidden war is having on the unarmed Somali women and children can be hidden from the world media and the world as a whole.

The only people who are profiting from the blood of Somalis is the American EU arms industry and criminal rebels disguised as 'peace keepers' from Uganda and Burindi who are being employed by the US and EU to kill, murder Somali women and children at an industrial scale.

The somali people of Southern Somalia can achieve peace, if they are give the chance, as the people of Somaliland and Puntland have done
so with no international meddeling. You can form a goverment from a top down approach, but it as to be from grass roots.

Genocide against Somali people: you should pause and listen to yourself as you come across as a bit impetuous and dishonest.You are a "British Somali" and yet you accuse the EU and the United States as profiting from the blood of Somalis (whatever that means). As DtMurphy advises, maybe you should stop pontificating on the pages of The Economist from wherever you're and go lend a hand in Somalia. If you were doing this, you would have some scintilla of righteous fury at whoever it is that you think is committing genocide in Somalia.

It's interesting that you do not mention the role of the Islamic fundamentalists who have made the country ungovernable. You rail against Ugandan and Burundian AU peace-keepers and say nothing about the al-Shabab: its al-Qaeda connections; scorched earth policy and stone-age laws (like banning women from wearing bras; cutting off people's limbs or sawing off their heads; conscripting kids into their murderous mayhem and even banning people from watching football).

Peace in Somalia will not be realized if people like you (who should know better) continue commenting on Somali issues from afar and doing nothing at all to support the transitional government. Don't you think that it is disheartening that some young Somalis who have received domicile in the west are going back home not to build their communities or support the government but to join al-Shabab?

Who is to blame for the clan rivalry that put paid the Somali state when Barre was brought down? Americans? Europeans? Kenyans? Other Africans? Somalis destroyed their country and only them can build and restore it.

I am friends with many Somalis who live in Nairobi and I have lost count of those who tell me that they really don't care for Somalia; that it might as well slide into the ocean. Some of these people will also speak kindly of the Muslim fanatics shooting up Mogadishu and making very hard the lives of the poor Somalis who remain there. Now this, along with dishonesty and cowardice from people like you, is what makes restoration of the Somali state hard.

Just think about it.

I wish I was as optimistic about the defeat of Al-Shabab as the correspondent and the cheery Ugandan commanders in Mogadishu. This is just the ebb and flow of urban warfare not a strategic shift. I cannot understand how the UN, US, EU and the AU could somehow convince themselves that Al-Shabab could be defeated by 8,000 Ugandans abd Burundians when the fanatics sent 50,000 Ethiopians home only few years ago. And with all due respect to the brave Ugandan soldiers they are no match for the Ethiopians who are arguably the best fighting force in Black Africa.

Everybody seems to have overlooked the fact that the Ugandan army could not defeat their own fanatics of the LRA after nearly 20 years of fighting in their own country. So how anyone could even convince themselves that they could defeat Al-Shabab which is a better funded, better trained and more determined fighting force than the LRA ever were?

Al-Shabab ARE beatable. They are despised by most people (although like all fanatical ideologues they actually believe they are loved and respected)for their brutality and their perversion of the once serenly beautiful and tolerant Somali Islam. Their top leaders are inexperienced and mostly come from the distant Northern regions of Puntland. Their murderous 30-something chief Abdi Godane, is actually a Somalilander. They are divided on everything from ideology to the role of foreign fanatics in their movement. They are constantly harassed by Ethiopian and CIA intelligence and hit squads. Their Juba valley heartlands is suffering from serious drought. Yet they still control half of Mog and most of the South.

Why? Partially because they still have a semblance of an excuse for fighting foreign 'Christian invaders' supported and paid for by the big Satan himself. The training, men, money and arms flowing into Mogadishu's toothless TFG from Uganda, EU, Arab League and most importantly US are actually weakening the only social infrastructure with a realistic chance of defeating the fanatics: The local Mogadishu clan of Hawiye. Men who now run away or sell their arms because they see no reason in fighting for a 'government' let alone the even more abstract idea of a 'Nation' will fight to death if they were biffing for their clan. The Arabs and other Asian foreign islamists will simply go home once they realise the fight is no longer against big Satan or even even smaller ones.

The current situation maintains the status quo which is one of continous war and death and misery for Somali people.

If you wish this war to end - leave - the AMISOM, EU, TFG, the lot just leave. I have absolutely no doubt that the Hawiyes will turn on these foreigners, fanatics and perhaps worse, Northerners tryting to control them in their own clan patch.

Genocide against the Somali people : Just because you keep lying does not make it true. You keep laying blame on others without justification for the problems in Somalia. How mentally sick.

Others risk their lives to stop the internal bloodshed and you have the cowardly nerve to lie about their activities. It looks like you support the evil actions of the Somali murderers; perhaps you are one of them?

Oberkommando Der Wehrmacht: "We have decisively pushed back the Evil Enemy at Stalingrad by 0.6 kilometers ! Victory is close !"

As matter of fact dtmurphy and mwendah I am not an Asylum seeker, and was infact born and bred in London. What both of you need to do is start reading more: A lot of Somali men from Somaliland fought bravely for Britian, and thousands of British soldiers lost their lives defending the people of Somaliland in World War 2 against the Italians. There are also thousands of british people form Liverpool, Cardiff, Hull, London, Sheffield, and South Sheilds, who can trace some of their ancestory back to Somaliland at least six generations ago.

The tradgey for the people of Mogadishu ( who are completly Hawiye), is that during the Italian rule, the Somali peace making tribal structure was weakened and they were completely urbanised. However, The Turks, and British rulers goverened the Somaliland region using the Somali elders and traditional sultans, that is why the north is more stable. Also, international medelling as added fuel to fire in Mogadishu and Southern Somalia.

A lot of people (even probably the British Goverment) are saying put Mogudishu on the back burner, it doesn't respresent the whole of Somalia. Take the more stable and well goverened region of Somaliland ( which was actually independent and had a seat at the UN) out of the equation and let it be recognised as a country. Then make Bosaso or Garowee as the capital of the rest of Somalia (that was under Italian rule), because Puntland has been very stable and do want to remain as part of Somalia.

The Somnali people are fed up of war and being in state of misery. Only the corrupt rulers of Ethiopia and Eritrea will gain from the misery and blood shed of the Somalis.

Genocide against the Somali people: your mouth (or fingers while typing) seem to be running faster than your brain. Whether or not you sought asylum in Britain is neither here nor there and is certainly not relevant to the discussion. In any case, I didn't say that you're in asylum. However, by calling yourself British Somali makes your calumny against Britain dishonest. As long as you don't apportion blame to al-Shabab and the clan rivalry that tore Somalia asunder, you'll still be like the proverbial ostrich. As long as people like you and other young men with Somali heritage go back there to fight with the Shababs, Somalia's hope may be lost. Your continued damning of everyone (Ethiopia, Eritrea, EU, US) while not pointing to the log in your own eye, your own culpability as someone who knows better is ill-advised.

The British soldiers who died in the WWII while fending off the Italians from Somalia were not protecting the Somali people--they were defending the British empire, of which Somalia was a vassal. Italy was in the axis camp with Hitler's Germany and they had to be defeated by any means. As for Somalis dating back many generations in Britain, it's neither novel or unique: the East African coast also suffered from slavery--and later colonialism.