"When it comes to Somalia, inaction is not an option",

The escalating violence in southern Somalia, especially in the battered capital, Mogadishu, risks undermining the modest political gains made since last December. Unless concerted and urgent steps are taken to mediate a speedy end to this fighting, there is a high probability the country will slide into a full civil war, with ever more refugees and violent extremism as its most likely exports.
The scale and ferocity of the latest fighting between the transitional government and the hard-line Islamist factions opposed to it is unprecedented, even by Somalia's grim and bloody standards. More than 100,000 civilians have been displaced by fighting in and around Mogadishu over the past month, with hundreds killed and thousands injured. The fighting has spread to suburbs untouched by the violence, even at the height of the worst fighting throughout the last three years. It has also extended to the country's relatively less violent central regions, with the pro-government Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jamaah movement locked in a battle for supremacy with the extreme militant Al-Shabaab.
The massive wave of dislocation, most acute in Mogadishu, is aggravating the country's humanitarian crisis and straining aid agencies' ability to deliver assistance. And, according to reports, al-Qaeda fighters have begun to leave Pakistan for Somalia because of the opportunities for jihad. ...more..http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=6157