"There are degrees of Shabab-ness...

if you will, and we think it's important to find ways to get food to people, including people who are in al-Shabab controlled territories." ~ Bruce Wharton, the deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs.

A U.S. official noted Thursday that the U.S. said this week it would not prosecute legitimate aid groups trying to assist Somalis suffering from famine in areas under al-Shabab control. Such prosecution would have been possible under U.S. anti-terrorism laws, but getting groups to go into a part of Somalia controlled by a brutal, hardline Islamist insurgency is another matter.

The official, Jon Brause of USAID, told journalists in Nairobi, Kenya, that there hasn't been a dramatic increase in assistance flowing to Somalia after the announcement because it's so difficult to access al-Shabab-controlled territory.

No U.S. law specifically prevents aid to southern and central Somalia, where the U.N. food agency says it cannot reach 2.2 million Somalis in areas under al-Shabab's control. But bribes, tolls and other typical of costs of doing business in the largely lawless and chaotic country could have been punishable after the State Department declared al-Shabab a terrorist organization in 2008.