Unintended consequences: how Somalia's business community, in search of stability, and the USA, in search of terrorists, nearly created a radical Islamic state in the horn of Africa

In the late 1990s, Somalia's business community struggled to profit in a market without any regulation. The government had collapsed and clan warlords had divvied up the country and the capitol. The business people supported the Islamic clerics who formed Sharia courts to solve disputes. After 2001, Islamic radicals with ties to al-Qaida infiltrated the courts and used them as a springboard to seize control of the country. This paper examines those unintended consequences, the subsequent failure of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to stop the takeover and Ethiopia's ultimate intervention, which had mixed results.