Photo of the Day: Devastation in Mogadishu

By Michael J.W. Stickings

From The Globe and Mail: "The shattered ruins of Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, look almost like Stalingrad after the famous battle that turned the tide in World War II."

Almost 20 years after Black Hawk Down, Somalia is barely a country. It has been destroyed -- literally, as this photo shows -- by civil war.

There is some hope that the new government of Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed can institute lasting reforms and bring much-needed stability, but the Transitional Federal Government controls only a small part of the country and not even all of the capital, Mogadishu, and Al-Shabaab, the Islamist insurgent group that is the government's main opposition, continues to be a major force.

It's hard to see how this gets any better anytime soon.