Various armed groups would then fight for control of Mogadishu, Somalia's capital, and of central Somalia.
The al-Qaeda-linked militant group al-Shabab lost control of Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, to AU and Somali government forces in 2011.
O'Brien's play is a story of war and war reporting that was inspired by the experiences of Paul Watson, who won a Pulitzer for a 1993 photo of a dead U.S. Army Ranger dragged through the streets of Somalia's capital.
In September, the exiled ICU leadership held a nine-day conference in the Eritrean capital of Asmara where they formed the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia headed by Ahmed.
African Union troops forced al-Shabab out of the capital in 2011 but the group still controls wide swaths of south-central Somalia.
Moalin had kept a house in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, one of the world's most embattled cities at the time.
Tebbutt was flown out of Adado, Somalia, to the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
They have been kicked out of Mogadishu, Somalia's ruined seaside capital, by African Union (AU) troops paid by America and the European Union.
Al-Shabaab, a militant Islamist group that controls much of southern Somalia and is active around the capital Mogadishu, has been battling the country's weak transitional government for years.
The attack on a high-profile event in the heart of the capital is seen as a big symbolic blow to Somalia's attempts to reinvent itself on the international stage after years as a failed state.
Islamists who last week captured Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, tightened their grip on the southern half of the fragmented country by taking Jowhar, which had served as a temporary capital 90km (55 miles) north of Mogadishu.
The US believes he is one of many "foreign terrorists" given shelter in Somalia and had asked the Somali group that now controls Somalia's capital to hand him over - despite repeated denials from Union of Islamic Courts that it is not harbouring foreign Islamic fighters.
This week Somalia's transitional government, with the help of Ethiopian forces, entered the capital, Mogadishu.
Several thousand of its troops will be stationed on Ethiopia's side of the border, a day's drive from Mogadishu, Somalia's battered capital.
Farah Hassan, who witnessed the aftermath of the attack, said those killed were all bystanders at the busy intersection in Somalia's capital.
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