The accompanying story, written by Times reporter Jeffrey Gettleman, detailed a group of Somali insurgents accused both of blocking Western aid to the country, resulting in a severe famine, and of imprisoning refugees trying to flee to safety. Half a million Somali children are "on the verge of starvation," Gettleman reports. The photo itself -- by Times photographer Tyler Hicks and spread large across four columns on Page One -- was taken in Banadir Hospital, which Gettleman described as such:

Every morning, emaciated parents with emaciated children stagger into Banadir Hospital, a shell of a building with floors that stink of diesel fuel because that is all the nurses have to fight off the flies. Babies are dying because of the lack of equipment and medicine. Some get hooked up to adult-size intravenous drips -- pediatric versions are hard to find -- and their compromised bodies cannot handle the volume of fluid.

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The revelations come just two weeks after media reports -- sourced to unnamed American officials -- of a U.S. drone attack in Somalia on members of the Islamic militant group Shabaab, which was designated a terrorist organization by the State Department in 2008.

The Washington Post noted that Somalia is now the sixth country -- joining Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen -- where the Obama administration has launched drone attacks.

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Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of attacks on two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed 224 people, was killed when he failed to stop at a routine checkpoint outside of Mogadishu, Somalia's capital.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has called the 38-year-old's death a "significant blow to al-Qaida, its extremist allies, and its operations in East Africa."

British officials have said they see al-Qaida affiliates in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula as being a significant threat to British interests.

"He was a fairly big player, but there is nothing to suggest that any reconnaissance had been done or that any of the attacks were imminent," a British security official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to discuss intelligence matters.

It was not exactly clear how officials found the information on the British targets. There was no immediate evidence to suggest that Mohammed was working with British contacts or that he even understood where some of the intended targets were.

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Somali officials have determined that a man killed by security forces on Tuesday was Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, said a spokesman for Somalia's minister of information, Abdifatah Abdinur.

"We've compared the pictures of the body to his old pictures," he said. "They are the same. It is confirmed. He is the man and he is dead. The man who died is Fazul Abdullah."

Abdinur said the government is planning to issue a statement confirming Mohamed's death.

Mohamed had a $5 million bounty on his head for allegedly planning the Aug. 7, 1998 embassy bombings. The blasts killed 224 people in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania combined. Most of the dead were Kenyans. Twelve Americans also died.

Members of Somalia's most dangerous militant group, al-Shabab, have pledged allegiance to al-Qaida. Al-Shabab's members include veterans of the Iraq and Pakistan conflicts.

Hundreds of foreign fighters are swelling the ranks of al-Shabab militants who are trying in vain to topple the country's weak U.N.-backed government.

Somalia has been mired in violence since 1991, when the last central government collapsed.

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The navy captured 61 pirates fleeing the battle and the fire that broke out aboard the hijacked vessel. The battle is the latest example of the piracy trade's turn toward increased violence.

A pirate in Somalia threatened Indian sailors and the government with targeted attacks in retaliation for the arrests.

The Indian navy said a patrol aircraft spotted the mothership Friday while responding to another vessel reporting a pirate attack. The pirates aborted the hijacking attempt and tried to escape on the mothership.

When the Indian ships closed in Sunday night, the pirates fired on them. The hijacked vessel caught fire when the Indian navy returned fire, the navy said.

The pirates had hijacked the Mozambique-flagged Vega 5 in December and had used it as a mothership. Indian sailors rescued 13 crew members from the Vega 5 Sunday night about 700 miles (1,100 kilometers) off Kochi in southern India, the statement said.

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A Somali pirate had warned that if any attempt was made to rescue them, they would meet the same fate as the four American yachters slain by their pirate captors last week. Any chance of a quick rescue seemed to disappear Wednesday.

The sailboat being piloted by Jan Quist Johansen, his wife and their three children, ages 12 to 16, anchored near the coastal village of Hafun late Tuesday, said Yusuf Abdullahi Sanyare, the commissioner of Hafun, which lies on Somalia's northern tip.

Abdiaziz Mohamud Yusuf, the spokesman for a community group called the Puntland Peacemakers, told The Associated Press that the family has been taken on land.

However, a Somali pirate who gave his name as Muse Abdi said the family was transferred to another, larger pirated ship.

"They are safe. They were just transferred from the boat to the big ship," said Abdi, who has provided reliable information in the past. "They have been added to other nationals in another ship to avoid any possible attack."

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The boat's owners, Jean and Scott Adam of Marina del Rey, along with Bob Riggle and Phyllis Macay of Seattle, were shot to death early Tuesday, after pirates took them hostage on Friday about several hundred miles south of Oman.

Macay's niece, Nina Crossland, told reporters Tuesday that her aunt was "a very smart and avid sailor."

"I think she was smart enough and planned ahead and prepared to not be in this type of situation," she said, visibly shaken and holding back tears.

The Adams had been sailing full-time on their 58-foot yacht, the Quest, since December 2004 after retiring. They often travelled with friends, and on this trip were joined by Riggle and Macay.

Mariners were warned about traveling around the Horn of Africa because of the risk of pirate attacks. The four sailors traveled with a large flotilla to stay safe earlier in the trip, but left the group at the time of the attack, said Crossland.

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U.S. naval forces who were trailing the Americans' captured yacht with four warships quickly boarded the vessel after hearing the gunfire. They tried to provide lifesaving care to the Americans, but they died of their wounds, U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida said in a statement.

A member of a U.S. special operations force killed one of the pirates with a knife as he went inside of the yacht, said Vice Adm. Mark Fox, commander of U.S. naval forces for Central Command.

Fox said in a televised briefing that the violence on Tuesday started when a rocket-propelled grenade was fired from the yacht at the USS Sterett, a guided-missile destroyer 600 yards (meters) away. The RPG missed and almost immediately afterward small arms fire was heard coming from the yacht, Fox said.

President Barack Obama, who was notified about the deaths at 4:42 a.m. Washington time, had authorized the military on Saturday to use force in case of an imminent threat to the hostages, said White House spokesman Jay Carney.

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Five hours after the risky rescue began, it was over.

All 21 hostages were freed from the gunfire-scarred freighter. Eight pirates were killed and five were captured in what President Lee Myung-bak called a "perfect operation."

It was a remarkable ending to the daring and rare raid, handing South Korea a stunning success in the battle against pirates who have long tormented shipping in the waters off the Horn of Africa.

The lone casualty among the crew was the captain, identified as Seok Bae-gyun, 58, who was shot in the stomach by a pirate, South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo newspaper reported. He was taken by a U.S. helicopter to a nearby country for treatment, but the wound was not life-threatening, Lt. Gen. Lee Sung-ho of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters in Seoul.

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Prince is involved in a multimillion-dollar program financed by several Arab countries, including the United Arab Emirates, to mobilize some 2,000 Somali recruits to fight pirates who are terrorizing the African coast, according to a person familiar with the project and an intelligence report seen by The Associated Press. 

Prince's name has surfaced in the Somalia conflict amid the debate over how private security forces should be used in some of the world's most dangerous spots. Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, became a symbol in Washington of contractors run amok after a series of incidents, including one in 2007 in which its guards were charged with killing 14 civilians in the Iraqi capital.

Though Somali pirates have seized ships flying under various flags, most governments are reluctant to send ground troops to wipe out pirate havens in a nation that has been in near-anarchy for two decades and whose weak U.N.-backed administration is confined to a few neighborhoods of the capital. The forces now being trained are intended to help fill that void. They will also go after a warlord linked to Islamist insurgents, one official said.

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The MV EMS River was seized approximately 175 miles (280 kilometers) northeast of the port of Salalah, Oman, said Wing Cmdr. Paddy O'Kennedy. The pirates have been extending their range south and east in response to increased naval patrols off the Somali coast.

The general cargo ship has a crew of one Romanian and seven Filipinos, the EU force said. The ship is German owned and was carrying petrol from Greece to the United Arab Emirates.

Another pirated vessel, the MV Motivator, was close by during Monday's attack. Kennedy said that the presence of the other ship so close shows pirates are using larger pirated vessels as 'motherships' to extend their range. Several other recent attacks have also used pirated ships to help extend the range of the small speedboats the pirates used.

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State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Thursday that the U.S. was not involved in the project in any way and is worried by a lack of transparency in "its funding, objectives and scope."

The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that training for the force of up to 1,050 men has begun and is being paid for by an unknown Muslim nation. The AP reported that the mystery donor has hired a former CIA officer and a senior ex-U.S. diplomat to help with its creation.

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A U.S. District Court jury on Monday heard 4 1/2 hours of closing arguments. Judge Mark S. Davis told jurors to return Tuesday morning to begin their deliberations.

Attorneys for the five argued that the defendants were shark fishermen who were captured by pirates and violently forced into launching the April 1 attack on the USS Nicholas.

Prosecutors scoffed at the defense arguments and described the assault on the Navy frigate as a vicious and armed attack on American sailors.

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Witnesses described a horrific scene of dead bodies throughout the Muna Hotel and guests scrambling to safety by escaping out of windows.

The multi-pronged assault came less than 24 hours after the country's most dangerous militant group -- al-Shabab, a group allied with al-Qaida -- threatened a "massive" war against what it labeled as invaders, a reference to the 6,000 African Union troops in Mogadishu.

The attack on the Muna Hotel raised the two-day toll to at least 70 people, a high number even by Mogadishu's violent standards. Fighting that rocked Mogadishu on Monday killed 40 people, health officials said.

Somalia's deputy prime minister told The Associated Press that 19 civilians, six members of parliament, five security forces and two hotel workers were killed in the attack -- a total of 32. Two attackers also were killed, said Abdirahman Haji Aden Ibi, the deputy prime minister. A government statement said 31 people were killed.

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Fourteen people were killed in the north of the city near the main market in the capital, said head of Mogadishu's ambulance service, Ali Muse.

Resident Abdi Mohamed Aden said insurgents had shelled a military ceremony in the capital and then government forces had returned fire at insurgents operating from residential areas.

The president, the prime minister, the parliament speaker, the country's chief of staff, the police chief and other senior government officials were attending the ceremony during the shelling.

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The USS Nicholas came under fire early Thursday from pirates in an area west of the Seychelles.

The U.S. Africa Command said the five pirates seized would remain in U.S. custody on board the frigate for time time being. The Nicholas is home-ported in Norfolk, Va.

International naval forces have stepped up their enforcement of the waters off East Africa in an effort to thwart a growing pirate trade.

Experts say piracy will continue to be a problem until an effective government is established on Somalia's lawless shores. The country has not had a functioning government for 19 years.

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From Reuters via Roving Bandit (which bills itself "Probably the Best Economics Blog in Southern Sudan), we get a story on the  thriving mobile phone market in Somalia).

First, another entry in the "lead sentences I wish I had written" category:

Somalia's mobile phone business is booming despite the almost daily artillery fire that flies over expensive satellite dishes and the violence that has brought misery to the population of the Horn of Africa nation.

But here's the money quote:

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And the Somali pirates, who have dominated recent headlines with their hijacking and hostage-taking, join hands with al-Qaida to form a dynamic evil duo against the United States and our allies. We're the friendly monsters -- a big, hulking superpower with a heart of gold -- and they're the aliens from Planet Amok.

In the comic-book imagination of some of our leading pundits, the two headline threats against U.S. power are indeed on the verge of teaming up. The intelligence world is abuzz with news that radical Islamists in Somalia are financing the pirates and taking a cut of their booty. Given this "bigger picture," Fred Iklé urges us simply to "kill the pirates." Robert Kaplan waxes more hypothetical. "The big danger in our day is that piracy can potentially serve as a platform for terrorists," he writes. "Using pirate techniques, vessels can be hijacked and blown up in the middle of a crowded strait, or a cruise ship seized and the passengers of certain nationalities thrown overboard."

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Just kidding -- of course you did! Unless you somehow managed to sequester yourself in complete isolation from all media and other human beings for the past week until landing on War Room just now, you probably haven't been able to escape hearing about the Somali pirates and their hijacking of an American ship bringing food aid to the impoverished residents of Somalia. And you've definitely heard about the Navy's daring rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips, who had given himself up in order to secure his crew's safety.

Don't get me wrong, I like a good pirate story as much as anyone, and I certainly don't claim to be above this kind of news -- actually, I'm typically pretty interested in it. But am I alone in thinking that, especially now that Phillips has rescued, perhaps the level of attention given to the drama in recent days has been a little much?

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In December 2006, Ishmael crossed through Somalia into Kenya, heading for the nearest refugee camp in search of medical care. But when he didn't have enough money to pay a 1,000 shilling ($15) bribe, the Kenyan police bundled him into a car and took him to Nairobi. Less than a month later, he was herded onto an airplane with some 30 others, flown to Somalia and handed over to the Ethiopian military -- the same forces that he previously fled.

Ishmael is a victim of a 2007 rendition program in the Horn of Africa, involving Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and the United States. There are at least 90 more victims like him. Most have since been sent home. A few -- including a Canadian and nine who assert Kenyan nationality -- remain in detention even now. The whereabouts of 22 others -- including several Somalis, Ethiopian Ogadenis, and Eritreans -- remain unknown.

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