US is Right to Give Aid to Somalia, Despite Risk of Helping Al Shabab

The answer to the crisis would seem to be aid from the outside, but control of southern Somalia by al Shabab, an Islamic militia designated as a terrorist group by the US State Department, poses a legal and political wrinkle. As Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Tara Vassefi explain, “two competing desires — to help the Somali people, and to prevent money from reaching militant groups — sets up a real dilemma for American policymakers.”