The announcement this week of a Somali terror suspect's transfer to U.S. federal court came just after reports of the U.S. drone war's expansion into Somalia.
Both developments highlight the growing U.S. counterterrorism interest in Somalia and raise questions about how it might be expected to impact the country's 20-year-old civil war.
"American strategy in Somalia has not always matched up with the reality on the ground, and at the moment the reality is shifting very quickly there," says David Axe, an independent correspondent and World Politics Review contributor who has reported from Somalia.