Illeyn Mr. Tall waa jajuus!

[Sayyid]

But now, for the first time in a decade, US forces arc dipping their toes back in 'Skinnyland', as the troops used to call Somalia, only this time they are conducting top-secret missions with 'friendly' warlords against al-Qa'eda and its allies. Among their warlord allies is Hussein Aydiid, son of Mohamed Farah Aydiid. In other words, 9/11 has so changed American global priorities that it is now doing business with the forces that prevent Somalia emerging from darkness, in order to catch terrorists who find haven there. The reason they find haven there, of course, is that there is no government.

 

 

And there is no government because of the warlords. Al-Qa'eda has probably been in Somalia since 1993, when it formed an alliance with al Ittihad al Islamiya, a group that has sporadically held both towns and territory. These bases have provided staging posts for a series of attacks against Western interests, mainly in Kenya, starting with the 1998 US embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Next was the Thanksgiving Day 2002 suicide bombing in Mombasa, and the attempt that same morning to shoot down an Israeli charter plane as it took off. Kenyan police interrogations of terrorism suspects reveal that al-Qa'eda aborted a plan to blow up the newly constructed US embassy in Nairobi in June, using a truck packed with explosives and a small aircraft carrying a bomb.

 

Al Ittihad is linked with Islamic rebels opposing the Christian government of Meles Zenawi in neighbouring Ethiopia and was involved in the 1995 assassination attempt against Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa. Ethiopia has invaded Somali soil several times since 1996, and created an alliance of warlords who willingly became its puppets. Following 9/11, it was these proxies who became America's off-the-peg allies when it found that it had few friends left in Somalia and had to turn to Ethiopia.

 

According to UN estimates, there are fewer than 50 Westerners in all of Somalia, and Mogadishu is largely off-limits to them. In late 2001, CIA operatives established their main base of operations in Baidoa, a godforsaken inland town and epicentre of the terrible 1992 famine. Aid workers have seen these spooks regularly arriving on charter flights from Nairobi and stalking around in aviator dark glasses and hunting jackets. At the same time, German and US navy aircraft and ships arc patrolling Somali skies and coastline, conducting electronic surveillance, intercepting pirates and arms smugglers on timber dhows. In the French Foreign Legion stronghold of Djibouti, 1,800 US troops have been deployed to track down terrorists across Africa's Horn. The Djibouti base is part of the global reordering of US forces now under way, involving the creation of what General James Jones of the US European Command calls 'lily pad' bases to get closer to the action.

 

Early this year, the snatches began. The Americans, lubricating their Somali friends with plenty of cash, focused on Mogadishu. My sources cite two examples. In March the Americans used a minor freelance warlord known as 'Mr Tall' to track down a man named Suleiman Abdalla Salim Hemed, a Tanzanian of Yemeni Arab origin. Abdalla hardly looked like an al-Qa'eda terrorist. He was about 20 and was into hip-hop music and dancing; hence his nickname 'Travolta'. But he is believed to have used boats from Somalia to import the explosives and missiles used in the Mombasa attacks. Mr Tall and his boys initially muffed the capture, got into a gunfight and injured Abdalla in the process. He escaped, but checked into a hospital, where he was sniffed out by Mr Tall, who dragged him out of bed and delivered him to the Americans at an airstrip outside the city.

 

On 24 July, the Americans returned to Mogadishu. Witnesses this time saw nine CIA or Special Forces arrive by aircraft outside the city. They were met by a convoy of battlewagons manned by militias of the Murosade clan warlord Mohamed Afrah Qanyare. The combined forces then drove into Mogadishu and surrounded a building near the Green Line, a part of town that was blown to smithereens during the civil war. Their target was a Yemeni known as Sheikh Jaylani, who was allegedly linked to the suicide boat bomb attack against the USS Cole in Aden some years ago. The Americans arrested him and whisked him away, probably to Djibouti.

 

Independent security sources have told me that the operations to capture Abdalla and Sheik Jaylani were devised as dry runs to see how easy it was to conduct more snatches in Mogadishu. Further operations are likely in and around the city. The challenge is how to capture the more important and betterprotected terrorists in Somalia, such as Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan. Nabhan, another Yemeni, is linked to both last year's Mombasa attacks and to the plot to blow up Nairobi's new US embassy this June, but he is related by marriage to a warlord in Baidoa and has some well-armed friends in Mogadishu. Another alleged al-Qa'eda terrorist, who feels safe enough in Mogadishu to openly attend mosque prayers, is Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a Comoros islander believed to have masterminded the 1998 US embassy bombings, as well as playing a role in the Mombasa attacks. Capturing men such as Nabhan and Fazul will need to involve a more overt American military operation along the lines of the 3 October 1993 plan before it went wrong. One presumes that this is why the bulk of US forces are waiting in Djibouti. But for now at least, the 'Mogadishu effect' still has the power to scare the Bush administration, especially in an election year and with the unfolding debacle in Iraq.

 

This is a pity because, thanks to the chaos in Somalia, al-Qa'eda's threat remains higher in East Africa than anywhere else outside the Middle East and Central Asia. A UN panel of experts investigating the illegal weapons trade in Somalia has reported that it had 'learnt of recent attempts by extremist groups to procure explosives on the Mogadishu arms market, as well as ongoing militia training in the use of explosives . . . Transnational terrorists have been able to obtain not only small arms, but also man-portable air-defence systems, light anti-tank weapons and explosives.' Hussein Aydiid claims to have sold 41 missiles to the US. But UN sources privately express alarm over a report that a further seven sophisticated surface-to-air missiles were recently imported to Somalia for the purpose of carrying out fresh attacks in neighbouring states. Kenya is evidently the main target, where authorities have had only mixed success intercepting terrorist suspects. In August, Kenyan police arrested a man in Mombasa but failed to search him for weapons. He detonated a grenade in his pocket, killing himself and two security officers. A cache of surface-to-air missiles and guns was later discovered at the terrorist's home.