With unmanned drones in the skies and the launch of secret commando raids, Somalia must feel like familiar territory for the CIA veterans who have moved to East Africa. They are hunting terrorists in a failed state, ruled for decades by tribal chieftains and brutal warlords. Its desperate people are turning in fear to an Islamist militia. al-Qaeda senses a chance to re-establish itself in the Horn of Africa.
It's all strikingly reminiscent of Afghanistan, where many of the special forces operatives and intelligence agents have just come from, probably with British SAS colleagues alongside them.
Americans have been on Somali soil before – during America's disastrous intervention in the early 1990s, which ended after the firefight that was later made into the film Black Hawk Down.
Since then, the outside world has tried hard to ignore the unlucky country. But now Somalia is showing signs of becoming a second crucible of terror, one that could cause the West as much trouble as the lawless borderlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has warned of the risk of al-Qaeda leaders moving into the African country, which terrorists see as a good base for spreading mayhem on a troubled continent.
Security services fear that under the control of al-Shabaab – a militia similar to the Taliban which has taken over much of the south and most of the capital Mogadishu – Somalia could become a new bolt hole for al-Qaeda's leadership. They are under pressure in the badlands of Waziristan, in Pakistan, which have served as their main base since bin Laden's men were driven out of Afghanistan in 2001. The route from there to Mogadishu is long but unpoliced.
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