Somalia | featured news

At least 20 people were killed and 60 others wounded in shelling in the Somali capital Sunday, medics told CNN.

Eleven suspected pirates have arrived in the United States to face criminal prosecution for alleged attacks on U.S. Navy ships near Somalia, a federal government source said Friday.

Pirates off Somalia have hijacked two more vessels in the Gulf of Aden, the European Union naval force said today -- making a total of four captured this week.

Officials say a Somali national tried to board a commercial airliner in Mogadishu last month with powdered chemicals, liquid and a syringe that together could have caused an explosion. The hallmarks bear chilling similarities to the terrorist plot to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner.

The U.S. has transferred a dozen Guantanamo detainees to Afghanistan, Yemen and the Somaliland region.

Authorities unsealed terrorism-related charges Monday against eight defendants they said recruited young Somali-American men to return to their homeland to fight for an Islamist militant group.

The American-flag ship seized by pirates in April repelled the attack; a captain was killed in a separate incident.

War-plagued Somalia, with its crumbling government infrastructure, is the world's most corrupt country, according to a global survey by the international watchdog Transparency International.

U.S. military surveillance drones are patrolling off Somalia's coast for the first time in hopes of stemming a rising piracy trade.

An Islamic court in Somalia on Thursday cut off a hand and foot from each of four men convicted of stealing phones and guns, drawing hundreds of onlookers as the weeping men were punished at a military camp.