Country Profile: Somalia

— -- Located on the east coast of Africa, in what geographers call the Horn of Africa, Somalia has played an important role in what experts have called the U.S. policy of "casualty aversion," a strategy that has its roots in the U.S. military involvement in Vietnam.

Just as images of the Vietnam War weakened America's stomach for military casualties, the gruesome 1993 shots of the bodies of American soldiers being dragged through the streets of the Somali capital of Mogadishu by an exultant crowd, has contributed to U.S. skittishness in international operations.

But with U.S. "casualty aversion" buried in the charred rubble of the World Trade Center, Somalia has moved into the lens of the international fight against terrorism.

Troubled History

Ever since the region came to the attention of colonial Europe in its bid for strategic trading ports to the East in the 19th century, the region that is now Somalia has had a troubled political history.

Italy and Britain vied for territory in the Horn of Africa through the two World Wars until British Somaliland gained independence and joined Italian Somaliland to form the Somali Republic in 1960.

As a socialist state, Somalia had a close relationship with the Soviet Union through the Cold War, but intermittent guerrilla fighting between militia leaders has plagued the country since the mid-1970s until 1991, when President Siad Barre was overthrown.

Ever since Barre's ouster, Somalia has, in effect, had no central government. Although interim President Abdiqassim Salad Hassan heads the Transitional National Government, he is believed to have little influence outside the capital where inter-militia fighting and an inability to deal with famine and disease have led to the death of nearly 1 million people.

In the Spotlight Again

Today, Somalia is one of the countries the United State has singled out as a place where terrorist groups or individuals are known to have operated.

Following the 9/11 terror attacks in the United States, the militant Islamic group Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, which has a strong presence in the country, was added to the list of organizations that faces a financial freeze following President Bush's Sept. 24, 2001 executive order on terrorism.