The tenacious popular resistance wore down the occupation troops, but it also kept the country in ruins.

Spence (later knighted for this work) insisted that instead of re-building the old cathedral it should be kept in ruins as a garden of remembrance and that the new cathedral should be built alongside, the two buildings together effectively forming one church.

His next intention was to begin reconstruction of the old keep in ruins behind the manor house.

Ahmed Godane, another Somalilander, the leader of Al Shabaab is a junior appointed to represent the interests of the secessionist Issak clan and keep the South of Somalia in ruins to facilitate an international recognition for the Issak tribal enclave in the North of Somalia a.k.a Somaliland.