For 15 years, Somalia has been ravaged by imperialist powers and gangs of local warlords. At the end of December, after a week of bloody confrontations, Ethiopian troops, supported by the American army, routed the battalions of the Islamic Courts, who had to flee the capital Mogadishu, taking refuge with their heavy weaponry in the surrounding areas. But the Islamists are far from defeated and are now waging guerrilla war against the Ethiopian occupation and the federal Somali government.