Somalia

When the White House sent a last-minute invitation for Asif Ali Zardari to attend the two-day NATO summit, they were taking a highly public gamble. Would sharing the spotlight with President Obama and other global leaders induce the Pakistani president to allow vital supplies to reach alliance troops fighting in Afghanistan? But long before the summit ended Monday, the answer was clear: No deal. Zardari's refusal to reopen the supply routes left a diplomatic blot on a summit that NATO sought to cast as the beginning of the end of the conflict in Afghanistan.

WASHINGTON - President Obama's top counter-terrorism advisor Monday defended using drones to launch missiles against militants in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, saying the growing use of armed unmanned aircraft had saved American lives and caused few civilian casualties. The comments by John Brennan, coming shortly before the first anniversary of the U.S. Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden, marks the first time a senior White House official has spoken at length in public about widely reported but officially secret drone operations.

Kenya's government has made an urgent appeal to the Obama administration for the Pentagon to provide intelligence and logistical support to Kenya's faltering month-old military operation in Somalia against the Shabab, a powerful Al Qaeda-linked militia. Administration officials are considering the request, which came through the State Department, to provide military surveillance and reconnaissance that could include imagery from drone aircraft. Such aid would represent a significant expansion of U.S. involvement in the chaotic East African nation.

U.S. officials on Wednesday were providing some new details on the dramatic helicopter rescue of an American aid worker and her Danish colleague in Somalia. The Pentagon released a statement Wednesday morning on the U.S. military's rescue, saying that Jessica Buchanan, 32, and Poul Hagen Thisted, 60, were not hurt in the operation. The Pentagon also said there were no injuries to any of the U.S. troops involved. It also noted that the FBI was involved in the rescue. Video: US military frees hostages in Somalia The commandos that carried out the operation were drawn from the same Navy SEAL team involved in the mission that killed Osama bin Laden, according to the Associated Press.

It has become apparent that real piracy is far different from the lighthearted subject sometimes portrayed in popular culture, and the problem is growing much worse. Besides the tragic cost in lives, the U.S., many other nations and NATO spent roughly $2 billion combined last year to safeguard the busy international sea lanes off the Horn of Africa from Somali pirates. According to the International Maritime Bureau, "hijackings off the coast of Somalia accounted for 92% of all ship seizures last year," and the price tag does not include the costs of reallocating critical military resources.

The moral of Somalia: Don't send the military to feed people. Relief agencies feed people. The military kills people. DOUGLAS INGOLDSBY Santa Barbara

U.S. officials on Wednesday were providing some new details on the dramatic helicopter rescue of an American aid worker and her Danish colleague in Somalia. The Pentagon released a statement Wednesday morning on the U.S. military's rescue, saying that Jessica Buchanan, 32, and Poul Hagen Thisted, 60, were not hurt in the operation. The Pentagon also said there were no injuries to any of the U.S. troops involved. It also noted that the FBI was involved in the rescue. Video: US military frees hostages in Somalia The commandos that carried out the operation were drawn from the same Navy SEAL team involved in the mission that killed Osama bin Laden, according to the Associated Press.

Jean and Scott Adam of Marina del Rey lived a life many would envy, until it was cut short Tuesday by a band of Somali pirates. On their yacht, Quest, they had spent most of the last decade sailing to exotic locales and were on a trip from Thailand to the Mediterranean with another couple, Phyllis Macay and Robert Riggle of Seattle, when their boat was intercepted off the coast of Oman. All four were shot to death Tuesday by their captors after negotiations with U.S. naval officials for their release apparently broke down.

It's hard to imagine what could make the situation in Somalia, a desperately poor failed state that hasn't had a functioning government since 1991 and is in the midst of a deadly drought, even worse. But a Minnesota bank may have found something. Minneapolis-based Franklin Bank is widely believed to be the last bank in the state, and probably the nation, that still facilitates wire transfers of money to Somalia. That may end Dec. 30, when it plans to stop. Somali immigrants in the U.S., who have settled in large numbers in Minnesota's Twin Cities, annually send an estimated $100 million back to their homeland.

President Obama said this morning that U.S. special operations forces had rescued an American woman held hostage for three months in Somalia. Jessica Buchanan was rescued Tuesday and is on her way home, Obama said in a statement issued early this morning. News of the rescue began to spread shortly after Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday night. As the president arrived in the House chamber, cameras captured him saying to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, "Good job tonight.

The Navy SEALs parachuted into the darkness, landing more than a mile from their objective: a small bush camp in north-central Somalia where an American aid worker and a Danish colleague were being held captive. The commandos, several dozen in all, shed their chutes and moved quietly through the brush. The compound had been under secret U.S. surveillance for weeks after an intelligence tip had signaled the whereabouts of the hostages, 32-year-old Ohio native Jessica Buchanan and 60-year-old Poul Thisted.

A Navy destroyer rescued 13 Iranian fishermen held hostage by Somali pirates in the Arabian Sea only days after Tehran warned the United States to keep its ships out of the nearby Persian Gulf. Sailors from the guided-missile destroyer Kidd boarded the Iranian dhow Thursday and detained 15 Somalis after one of the fishermen was able to reveal in a radio communication that his vessel's crew was being held captive. Seeing a publicity windfall at a time of growing tension with Iran, Pentagon public affairs officers quickly swung into action, setting up a conference call for reporters with Navy commanders in the region.

It's hard to imagine what could make the situation in Somalia, a desperately poor failed state that hasn't had a functioning government since 1991 and is in the midst of a deadly drought, even worse. But a Minnesota bank may have found something. Minneapolis-based Franklin Bank is widely believed to be the last bank in the state, and probably the nation, that still facilitates wire transfers of money to Somalia. That may end Dec. 30, when it plans to stop. Somali immigrants in the U.S., who have settled in large numbers in Minnesota's Twin Cities, annually send an estimated $100 million back to their homeland.

In the month since Kenya invaded southern Somalia, one government official has urged negotiations with Al Qaeda-linked militants the army is attacking there. Another ruled out talks. A spokesman said the incursion was months in the planning. The army commander said the decision took just days. There is greater accord among officials that the country's first foreign war in its nearly 50-year history is likely to be a long slog, and among critics that Operation Linda Nchi, or Protect the Nation, is a risky venture of more value to the U.S. than to Kenya.

Kenya's government has made an urgent appeal to the Obama administration for the Pentagon to provide intelligence and logistical support to Kenya's faltering month-old military operation in Somalia against the Shabab, a powerful Al Qaeda-linked militia. Administration officials are considering the request, which came through the State Department, to provide military surveillance and reconnaissance that could include imagery from drone aircraft. Such aid would represent a significant expansion of U.S. involvement in the chaotic East African nation.

When his parents were killed in a rocket attack, the only person to show a lonely Somali boy named Abdi any kindness, or say a caring word, was a family friend named Abdufazil. The man bought him meat and camel milk. Then he sent the 13-year-old to a training camp to become a suicide bomber. Abdufazil was a commander of the militant Islamist militia Shabab in Mogadishu, Somalia's capital, and he told the boy that Christians had killed his parents. He and other Shabab fighters urged him to take revenge for the attack.

In Nairobi's "Little Mogadishu" neighborhood, paranoia drifts in the air, mingling with cooking smells and the stink of open drains. "I'm living in a world of fear," says Ahmed Ali Ibrahim, a tall, skinny 35-year-old Somali refugee with a shrapnel scar under his skull cap. "I can't walk about freely. " Ibrahim says he fled his homeland for Kenya, seeking safety after being wounded last year in a grenade attack on African Union peacekeepers by the Shabab, the Somali militant group linked to Al Qaeda.