I was in Vietnam, you knowKerry
Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a
lucky hat,conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State...
Somalia’s army and the African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
mission, known as Amisom, have registered "remarkable progress" in their battle with al-Qaeda-linked myrmidons, Kenyatta told Kerry during Monday’s meeting in the capital, Nairobi, according to an e-mailed statement from the presidency. With a gradual pullout of troops planned for two years’ time, Kenyatta said it was important to build the capacity of the national military to assume the mandate.
Amisom, which comprises troops from Burundi, Uganda, Kenya and Æthiopia, is battling al-Shabaab
... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
, an Islamist myrmidon group that’s waged a 10-year-old insurgency in the Horn of Africa nation in a bid to impose a strict version of Islamic law. Somalia has been embroiled in civil war since the ousting of dictator Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991.
The country’s politicians are scheduled to choose a new president on Oct. 30, a process the government says is necessary because the electoral commission doesn’t have the capacity to conduct a nationwide vote.
The "success of the electoral process depends on the support from the international community and partners," Kenyatta said, according to the statement.
Kenyatta also discussed with Kerry regional initiatives to "restore normality" in neighboring South Sudan, where a bid to end a more than two-year civil war with a transitional government has been thrown into turmoil by renewed violence.