Somali troops capture Islamic stronghold  —  KISMAYO, Somalia - Somali government troops backed by Ethiopian tanks and fighter jets captured the last major stronghold of a militant Islamic movement Monday, while hundreds of Islamic fighters — many of them Arabs and South Asians — fled the town.

Islamists Bug Out Of Somalia  —  Radical Islamists have given up their last stronghold in Somalia, chased out by the Ethiopian Army that has spent the last two weeks crushing them.  The Ethiopians and the Somialian transitional government liberated Kismayo as the Islamists beat a hasty retreat towards Kenya:

Iraqis learn the art of legal "workarounds"  —  This depressing New York Times article by John Burns and Marc Santora details the frantic, reckless manner in which Saddam Hussein was shoved into the noose in clear violation of Iraqi law.  We can't even get a hanging right.

For Sunnis, Dictator's Degrading End Signals Ominous Dawn for the New Iraq  —  BAGHDAD, Dec. 31 — For Sunni Arabs here, the ugly reality of the new Iraq seemed to crystallize in a two-minute segment of Saddam Hussein's hanging, filmed surreptitiously on a cellphone.

A 'Surge' Faces Trouble In the Senate  —  Sen. John McCain, leading a blue-ribbon congressional delegation to Baghdad before Christmas, collected evidence that a "surge" of more U.S. troops is needed in Iraq.  But not all his colleagues who accompanied him were convinced.