It was in the year 1339 that…

Mogadishu and other coastal commercial towns, through commerce, proselytization, and political clout, influence the Banaadir hinterlands (the rural areas outlying Mogadishu) in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Evidence of this influence is the increasing Islamization of the interior by sufis (Muslim mystics) who emigrate upcountry, where they settle among the nomads, marry local women, and bring Islam to temper the random violence of the inhabitants.

It had taken Vasco da Gama's fleet only twenty-three days to cross the Indian Ocean on the outgoing journey, sailing with the summer monsoon wind; now, on the return trip, sailing against the wind, it has taken one hundred and thirty-two days.

Gama sees land again only on January 2, 1499, passing before the coastal Somali city of Mogadishu, at this time under the influence of the Ajuran Empire in the Horn of Africa.

The fleet does not make a stop, but passing before Mogadishu, the anonymous diarist of the expedition notes that it is a large city with houses of four or five stories high and big palaces in its center and many mosques with cylindrical minarets.

The locus of intercommunication shifts upland to the well-watered region between the Shabeelle and Jubba rivers by the end of the sixteenth century.

Evidence of the shift of initiative from the coast to the interior may be found in the rise between 1550 and 1650 of the Ajuran (also seen as Ajuuraan) state, which prospers on the lower reaches of the interriverine region under the clan of the Gareen.

The considerable power of the Ajuran state will not be diminished until the Portuguese penetration of the East African coast in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Among Somali towns and cities, only Mogadishu successfully resists the repeated depredations of the Portuguese.

The last Portuguese foothold on the East African coast is dislodged in 1728 from the great Mombasa castle of Fort Jesus.

From this point until the European "scramble" for African colonies in the 1880s, the Omanis will exercise a shadowy authority over the Banaadir coast.

Omani rule over the Somalis consists for the most part of a token annual tribute payment and the presence of a resident qadi (Muslim judge) and a handful of askaris (territorial police).

Whereas the Banaadir coast is steadily drawn into the orbit of Zanzibari rulers, ...

The Bu Sa'idi family reaches the peak of its influence under Sa'id, who places the East African Arab and Swahili colonies from Mogadishu (Muqdisho) to ...

The catalyst for imperial tenure over Somali territory is Egypt under its ambitious ruler, Khedive Ismail.

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, this Ottoman vassal seeks to carve out for Egypt a swath of territory in the Horn of Africa.

However, the Sudanese anti-Egyptian Mahdist revolt that broke out in 1884 had shattered the khedive's plan for imperial aggrandizement.

The Egyptians needed British help to evacuate their troops marooned in Sudan and on the Somali coast.

Italy, recently unified, is inexperienced at imperial power plays.

It was therefore content to stake out a territory whenever it can do so without confronting another colonial power.

In southern Somalia, better known as the Banaadir coast, Italy is the main colonizer, but the extension of Italian influence is painstakingly slow owing to parliamentary lack of enthusiasm for overseas territory.

Italy acquires its first possession in southern Somalia in 1888 when the Sultan of Hobyo, Keenadiid, agrees to Italian "protection."

In the same year, Vincenzo Filonardi, Italy's architect of imperialism in southern Somalia, demands a similar arrangement from the Majeerteen Sultanate of Ismaan Mahamuud.

In 1889 both sultans, suspicious of each other, consent  to place their lands under Italian protection.

Italy now notifies the signatory powers of the Berlin West Africa Conference of 1884-85 of its southeastern Somali protectorate.

Later, Italy seizesthe Banaadir coast proper, which has long been under the tenuous authority of the Zanzibaris, to form the colony of Italian Somaliland.

Chisimayu Region, which passes to the British as a result of their protectorate over the Zanzibaris, will be ceded to Italy in 1925 to complete Italian tenure over southern Somalia.

General Rodolfo Graziani, De Bono's subordinate, is the Commander-in-Chief of forces invading from Italian Somaliland, the "southern front."

Initially he has two divisions and a variety of smaller units under his command.

His forces include a mix of Italians, Somalis, Eritreans, Libyans, and others.

De Bono regards Italian Somaliland as a secondary theater which needs primarily to defend itself and possibly aid the main front with offensive thrusts if the enemy forces there are not too large.

In the south, Sultan Olol Diinle commands a personal army that advances into the northern Ogaden alongside the forces of Italian Colonel Luigi Frusci.

The Sultan is motivated by his desire to take back lands that the Ethiopians had taken from him.

The Italian colonial forces even include some Yemenis recruited from across the Gulf of Aden.

Somalia endures three decades of dictatorship that creates enemy clans among the Somali people and deprives many citizens of their civil rights and possessions; oppression, persecution, and brutality are common.

The country falls under the control of a series of warlords each holding a small section of the country.

The rival factions war with each other from the mid-eighties.

With the abdication of President Mohammed Siad Barre in 1989, there is hope for peace and prosperity.

The enemies that the regime has created become violent, however, creating anarchy in Somalia.

The violence exarcerbates the effect of an already-serious famine, alleviated only through the eforts of a U.N.-sponsored humanitarian intervention.

From, 1991 Somalia lacks a central government that can safeguard its long coastlines and large territories.

This would seem to be the most likely reason that attracts dealers in toxic waste disposal to use Somalia as a dumping site for the waste generated elsewhere.

(According to a 1996 study by the American University of Washington, the cost of disposing one ton of hazardous waste in its source of generation is estimated to cost US $3000, in contrast with costs as low as US $5 in a developing country.)

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Somalia, in 1974.