Methodology

This report is based largely on six weeks of field research in Kenya, Somaliland, and Djibouti between June and September 2008. This was supplemented with telephone interviews with Somalis in Mogadishu during September and October 2008, as well as interviews with policymakers and analysts outside the region. Travel to Somalia under circumstances that would have permitted research was not possible during this period because of security concerns for potential interviewees and local civil society partners, as well as Human Rights Watch staff.

In June and July, Human Rights Watch researchers conducted in-depth interviews with refugees who had recently fled Somalia in several different locations-the Dadaab refugee camps in northern Kenya; in Nairobi; in Hargeisa, Somaliland; and, in Djibouti. In September researchers carried out additional interviews in Nairobi and Djibouti. We interviewed more than 80 victims and eyewitnesses to the patterns of abuse documented in this report. For broader context we interviewed dozens of analysts, Somali civil society activists, humanitarian workers, diplomats, medical staff, and journalists, some of whom were also eyewitnesses to the events described in this report. We also met with TFG officials including Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein, with ARS officials, including Sheikh Sharif Ahmed and Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden, and with UN officials, including UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG), Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah. We met with European Commission officials in Nairobi, but the Africa Bureau of the US State Department declined to provide any comment in response to Human Rights Watch's criticism of US government policy towards Somalia.

Because of security concerns, the identities of many of the people whose interviews are included in this report-including almost all of the victims and eyewitnesses we interviewed-have been withheld or their accounts have been presented under pseudonyms. We also omitted other identifying details about individuals or the locations where they were interviewed where we believed that information could put them at risk.

This report focuses largely, though not entirely, on events and patterns of abuse in Mogadishu in 2008. Mogadishu has been the site of the most consistent, brutal, and destructive fighting throughout the last two years. This is in part a reflection of the fact that Mogadishu is considered the most important prize in this conflict and a place that no party to the conflict has yet managed to control. Mogadishu is also home to a large majority of the refugees Human Rights Watch interviewed about their experiences. This is both because the intense fighting there has driven far more people to flee than in any other place and because a greater proportion of Mogadishu's population can afford the expense of traveling to neighboring countries. The situation in other parts of south-central Somalia varies considerably, though where fighting has occurred it has often involved many of the same patterns of laws of war violations and human rights abuse documented in this report.

Human Rights Watch was often able to determine the weapons used in particular attacks documented in this report because civilians, especially in Mogadishu, have become experts at identifying different weaponry by their specific characteristics. Dozens of eyewitnesses consistently named specific weapons that were used, and described to Human Rights Watch the sound or sight of different types of weaponry even when they were unable to name the type of weapon.

For instance, individuals repeatedly named BM-21 rockets or "Katyushas," which they called "BM" or described as "whistling" due to the sound they made when launched and the loud noise upon impact. Numerous people accurately told Human Rights Watch that mortar shells, by contrast, were silent in their flight.