An interesting and mostly ignored tidbit showed up in the fringe of yesterday’s overwhelming media coverage of President Obama’s inauguration.

A bulletin was issued late Monday night to state and local law enforcement agencies concerning a possible D.C. terrorist threat. Intelligence officials reported that they were analyzing information received in the days leading up to the inauguration which indicated that people affiliated with al-Shabaab, a radical group fighting an insurgency in Somalia, might try to stage an attack at some point during the Tuesday festivities.

According to various news sources, a U.S. counter-terrorism official said intelligence agencies were “not dismissive” of the threat but stressed the lack of corroboration and detail. The tip appears to have originated with U.S. law enforcement agencies, as opposed to overseas operatives.

Obviously and thankfully, the swearing in ceremony went off without a hitch, but the report should call our attention to a festering international problem that has gone untreated for far too long.

By most accounts, al-Shabaab was born from the remnants of the Islamic Courts Union. The ICU was the group that took control of Mogadishu during the summer of 2006. The ICU enjoyed popularity with the locals at first--mostly because it replaced the detested warlords that had controlled the once beautiful seaside Somalian capital since the 1991 oustering of (formerly U.S. backed) 22-year dicatator Siad Barre.

However, the ICU soon imposed Sharia law, which included the banning of public broadcasts of World Cup soccer matches and the ushering in of some very public and violent executions--both of which led to rioting in the streets.

The U.S. and its regional allies opposed the ICU because they believed that the group maintained strong ties with Al-Qaida. Additionally, ICU members were thought to include the men responsible for the African embassy bombings of the Clinton years.

With unofficial U.S. backing, Ethiopia invaded Somalia later that fall. In January of 2007, the Ethiopian supported Somali transitional federal government recaptured the war torn capital.

But, as Ethiopian troops withdrew and the bulk of peacekeeping forces failed to arrive, the principal backers of the ICU re-emerged Taliban style as the newly dubbed al-Shabaab.

Recent estimates indicate that al-Shabaab has become the de-facto ruling organization over much of southern Somalia, contolling an area at least as large as that held by the ICU during the height of its short-lived power.

We’ve been hearing for years now that Somalia is the next Afghanistan, yet so very little has been done.

Western media outlets generally ignore the region, partly because few reporters dare to travel to southern Somalia. Even relatively stable northern Somalia receives little press attention.

That all may soon change, as al-Shabaab’s driving goal is not just control of the capital region, but the unification of all ethnic Somalis under one unified Islamist state.

Such an end state may be less far fetched than it at first seems. It was Siad Barre’s desire to unite all Somalis (including those living in Ethiopia and Djibouti) that ultimately led to his downfall, but the region has destabilized significantly since the late 1980's.

The independent northern state Somaliland remains self governed and relatively stable, but unrecognized by the international community. Al-Shabaab suicide car bombings recently struck several Somaliland cities, shattering the peace.

What we all do know about when it comes to Somalia is the piracy off the coast. But we get little information in the sensationalized media reports that tell us who exactly these pirates are and what their activities are funding.

My experiences as a junior officer on a U.S. Navy ship patrolling the waters off of Mogadishu during the summer of 2006 showed me that the pirates were not simply fisherman gone bad. The entire ten weeks that my ship was on station, we were shadowed by a Belorussian captained merchant vessel that carefully remained just on the other side of the territorial waters line.

Why the then current policy forbade us from crossing into the failed state’s magical 12 nautical miles of personal water space baffled most of us on board, but after a while it began to make sense to me. The Navy wasn’t and isn't all that interested in shutting down piracy off the Somali coast. Navy leaders understand that stopping the organized crime, warlords and terrorist organizations that fund the piracy operations are not feasible naval objectives.

But “fighting pirates” sure looks good in the press and it provides the Navy with a much needed excuse to maintain high levels of funding and operational tempo in the face of two very non-navy wars. (This also explains why the navy has fairly recently become very interested in taking on the coast guard's traditional role of fighting drug trafficking in the Caribbean).

Stopping piracy in Somalia will more likely be a mission for the CIA, and it should be. The special forces at the U.S.’s nearby and newly created Djibouti-based Africa Command may be asked to help out.

Robert Gates supported the creation of the new Africa command. He has traveled to the base as the SECDEF. He apparently understands the dangers that Al-Shabaab imposes. Yesterday’s minor report probably consumed a decent chunk of his day.

It is no coincidence that the U.S. Africa Command headquarters are located in Djibouti--a nation populated almost exclusively by ethnic Somalis. Al-Shabaab is a real threat. We should all take note. And its at least a little comforting to know that the situation over there is on the forefront of Gates’ mind. The minor empty threat reported Monday night is not the last that we will hear from this dangerous group.