In late January, Ethiopia withdrew its last soldiers from Somalia after more than two years of bloody occupation and insurgency. Their departure immediately catalyzed a dramatic chain of events. The Transitional Federal Government (TFG) that had been backed by Ethiopia, the U.S. and the U.N. fled to Djibouti and, in apparent desperation, signed a peace deal with an alliance of moderate Islamists. As part of the deal, the TFG welcomed hundreds of alliance representatives into a newly-expanded parliament. The African Union declared the peace deal a "paradigm shift that gives Somalis a chance for lasting peace and reconciliation." The enlarged parliament wasted no time electing a new president to fill the position left vacant by ailing former warlord Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed when he stepped down in December. The new president, Shariff Sheik Ahmed, is a former member of the Islamic Courts Union, the group whose rise had provoked the Ethiopian invasion in late 2006.
War is Boring: Islamists, New Somali President Sign Peace Deal
