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An injured man is carried in Kampala's Mulago hospital, after twin bomb blasts tore through crowds of football fans watching the World Cup final. Somalia's al-Shabab insurgent group claimed responsibility.

Elizabeth Dickinson is assistant managing editor at Foreign Policy magazine.

Until yesterday, most every policymaker who works on Somalia thought — or, at least, hoped — that the damage from the country's implosion would remain within its borders. After two coordinated bomb blasts exploded in Uganda's capital of Kampala Sunday, however, the picture has permanently changed. Before, Somalia's Islamist group al-Shabab, a self-proclaimed regional al Qaeda affiliate that controls large swathes of the country, including much of Mogadishu, seemed like a threat to the Somali people and local aid workers but hardly anyone else. Now, after the attacks, al-Shabab has shown its ability to threaten its East African neighbors as well. It's a scenario that has kept East African counterterrorism analysts sleepless for years: a functional jihadist cell that can plan and execute civilian attacks internationally.

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Continued abject poverty fuels angst that can be sparked with hatred. We have been going after those who light the spark. The real issue is poverty and vast gaps in food people can afford and their overall living conditions.

Uganda bothers me greatly because it was a nation that had been on the recovery path for over 15 years and now this.  It is more than likely that U.S. will do nothing in this situation, but that would be wrong. What is needed is reconstruction right from the get-go.. but U.S. is not in the cushy place it once used to be. UN with non-US leadership to get aid to Uganda is probably necessary to prevent the disatrous event from becoming a fork in the road of Uganda.