A reminder of the images of US soldiers' bodies being dragged in the street of Mogadishu nearly two decades ago. It is happening again with AU and government soldiers' dead bodies burnt, displayed and dragged around Mogadishu. It's worse for those soldiers who're captured alive, like this Burundian soldier in the picture. I made this picture very small for a reason but you can read more on this and see the pictures in Mogadishu Man's blog (but I warn you: it's graphic).

The reality is that Mogadishu residents who live in the Al Shabab controlled part of the city despise the government and the AU peacekeepers, not because they like Al Shabab but because of the AU peacekeepers' indiscriminate shelling. This was highlighted in Human Rights Watch reports in 2007, 2008 and last year, and this is still going on.

The core of the problem is the nature of the mandate of the AU peacekeeping force: to protect the government even if at the expense of civilian lives.