As if there were not already enough bad news out there, matters in Somalia appear to be going from bad to worse:

The African front line in the West’s war on terrorism has collapsed as mass resignations from Somalia’s fragile government have all but handed power to hard-line Islamists.Twenty senior officials quit the United Nations-backed transitional administration this week. That brought to 39 – a third of the government – the number who have abandoned the struggle to stabilise the country and ward off the threat of an Islamist regime giving succour to al-Qa’eda in east Africa.