allhawd.com

Embracing Barack Obama as a fellow African, many residents of Somalia's war-weary capital Mogadishu say they expect the new U.S. president to act more positively toward Somalia than his predecessor, George W. Bush. 
Mogadishu resident Mowlid Abdi Abdullah says he has never been interested in watching the inauguration ceremony of a U.S. president before.  But he says Tuesday's inauguration of Barack Obama as the first black man to be sworn into the office was an event he could not miss.  
Abdullah says Barack Obama is a son of Africa and as Africans, Somalis support the new president wholeheartedly.  He says there is great hope among Somalis that Mr. Obama will make changes that can help bring peace to the long-suffering country.
President Obama inherits in Somalia what is arguably one of the most complex and difficult crises in the world today.  
In late 2006, focused on countering the rise of a terrorist movement in the Horn of Africa, the Bush administration actively supported an Ethiopian-led military campaign to oust Islamists from power and to install a secular-but-weak government in Mogadishu.