Washington, DC — AllAfrica's new feature, "Africa from Abroad" highlights important articles about the continent appearing in non-African media outlets. Our first entry highlights an extensive feature written by an American writer (and poet) who has travelled extensively in Africa.

Eliza Griswald has written an excellent piece on Somalia for the online edition of The Atlantic, the Washington-based magazine. Griswald traveled to Mogadishu and Asmara, Eritrea (a favorite destination for anti-Ethiopian Somali warlords) to talk the people in Somalia that really matter - the guys with guns.

Griswald interviewed Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, a man listed by the United States government as a terrorist, and Hussein Farah Aideed, the son of a famed warlord, in Asmara. As the Ethiopian army begins its pull out (or is it not going to leave?), the warlords and Islamists are going to become even more important as they step into the power vacuum.

Griswald also talked to Jendayi Frazer, the Bush administration's assistant secretary of state for African Affairs, and Ken Menkhaus, a critic of the administration's policy, about the past, present and future of U.S. policy. Somalia is going to be a focus of the Obama administration's Africa policy, and the future president faces an enormous challenge.