by Matt Freear | May 19, 2015 | Monitor
By now Secretary Kerry should have presented Congress with the State Department’s latest official annual review of the state of global terrorism. It will make hard reading and itemize a litany of failures in the seemingly unending war on terror. In the last 12 months...
by Matt Freear | Jun 13, 2013 | Monitor
This October sees the twentieth anniversary of events that came to be known as Black Hawk Down, in which eighteen US military personnel and hundreds of Somalis died. Over a thousand Somalis were injured, hundreds of them civilians, though estimates vary greatly. It so...
by Matt Freear | May 7, 2013 | Monitor
Today’s Conference on Somalia in London was historic for two reasons. First, it was the best opportunity in the last few decades for Somali leaders to stand up, on a more or less equal footing, with key international partners and decide the future of their country....
by Matt Freear | Mar 20, 2013 | Monitor
The casual observer of events in Mali could be convinced that the almost daily developments in the military campaign, now in its “ultimate phase” according to the French President, reflect an unstoppable momentum towards stability in the West African state. As visible...
by Matt Freear | Nov 28, 2012 | Monitor
As November comes to a close, no media personnel in Somalia have been killed which marks it out as an unusual month for 2012. International statements of condemnation for the eighteen journalists and media celebrities killed this year have been quick and clear. Yet...