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Even with today's advanced weapons and the increased reliance on small, special forces teams to engage and eliminate known terrorists cells, it likely that there will be some civilian casualties since war is not, nor ever has been, an exact science. Compounding the issue is the fact that terrorist groups like al Qaeda, are renowned for embedding themselves deep within the populations they are trying to subvert or control. On this basis engaging al Qaeda, as well as trying to win the war to secure the hearts and minds of civilian populations is a risky affair and it is both inevitable and unfortunate that civilians are caught up in the violence.

Somalia has been raised as a case in point where in the War on Terror, civilian casualties apparently occurred when US backed air strikes targeted elements of al Qaeda's known operatives. The process is nothing new, but what makes the Somali situation more complex has been the US's support for Ethiopian troops who invaded the country in December of 2006 to oust the Union of Islamic Courts, plunging the country into chaos.

According to the International Crisis Group, the trouble for Somalia began with the failure of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) to make progress in state building projects, due to internal politics. In June of 2006 the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) took control of Mogadishu defeating US backed local warlords and, despite their oppressive ethos and tactics, did instill some form of stability to the region. As mentioned, this stability was shattered months later when TFG and Ethiopian forces invaded and now the country is in civil strife. The situation has been exacerbated by indiscriminate and targeted violence towards civilians by Ethiopian troops who are in running battles with Somali rebels and insurgents trying to oust them.

In a letter to US Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, by Tom Malinowski, dated December 7th 2007 and published on the Human Rights Watch website, Malinowski asks that the US government intervene in the crisis by pressuring Addis Abbaba and the Ethiopian and TFG forces to abide by international law. Malinowski claims that there have been approximately 600, 000 people leave Mogadishu and that insurgent and Ethiopian forces have not made "any apparent effort to distinguish between civilian and military targets." He goes on to site examples of the deliberate targeting of hospitals, executions and other forms of human rights abuses by Ethiopian forces. Malinowski

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