Arab states trained Al-Qaeda men to fight in Somalia

[Juje]

Arab states trained Al-Qaeda men to fight in Somalia

 

MIDDLE EASTERN countries secretly armed and supported suspected Al-Qaeda recruits in the failed state of Somalia in a direct challenge to western interests in east Africa, according to a United Nations report.

 

Hundreds of Islamist fighters were flown, with Eritrean assistance, from Somalia to Syria and Libya for military training. Others were taken to Lebanon to fight with Hezbollah, the report to the UN security council has revealed.

 

UN investigators also detailed military aid given to the Islamists by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Arab states friendly to the West. Iran also supplied 125 shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, 80 of which arrived by sea in dhows and the rest by air.

 

A clandestine operation to smuggle the fighters out of Somalia began in July last year.

 

In an interview, Evgueny Zakharov, the owner of Aerolift, an airline with a fleet of ageing Antonov and Ilyushin transport aircraft, based in Johannesburg but registered in the British Virgin Islands, said: “We transported lots of men in uniform — Arabian men with masks.

 

“They were disciplined men and although none of them had rank badges there were obviously people in charge. They got on the aircraft as if they had done it many times before.”

 

Zakharov said his involvement began after he was approached by a General Tambi of the Eritrean People’s Defence Forces. Eritrea, a neighbour of Somalia in the volatile Horn of Africa, was a major supporter of the Islamists.

 

Tambi offered to buy Zakharov’s Ilyushin 76 transport aircraft carrying the Kazakhstan registration number UN 76496 for $1.5m (£770,000), even though the normal price for an aircraft of that vintage and condition is just $1m.

 

Zakharov went ahead despite the unusual contract conditions that stipulated secrecy. He insisted the contract should specify that the new owners were not to use the aircraft to make arms flights.

 

However, he said last week that the Ilyushin made three sanctions-busting arms flights to Somalia from the Eritrean port of Massawa, bringing out the masked men on the return legs. “I do not know who they were but you can draw your own conclusions,” he said.

 

Zakharov’s revelations came as western security services continued their investigation into foreigners suspected of fighting on behalf of Islamic forces in Somalia and of joining Al-Qaeda last year. Among them are British, American and French Muslims.

 

Significant numbers of foreigners went to Somalia, western intelligence officials have found, after the radical Islamic Courts Union (ICU) movement seized power from a weak UNbacked government, established links with Al-Qaeda and allowed Somalia to be used as an Al-Qaeda terrorist training ground like Afghanistan under Taliban rule.

 

In December, invading Ethiopian troops took the capital Mogadishu from the ICU and restored the internationally recognised government, routing the Islamists and scattering the foreigners and Al-Qaeda fighters.

 

But violence continues to plague the weak and fractured country and there are fears of an Islamist resurgence unless African Union peacekeepers are rapidly deployed.

 

Last week four British Muslims who had been in Somalia under the radical militia and then crossed the border into Kenya were briefly held under the Terrorism Act on their return to Britain.

 

An American who was also arrested in Kenya and then deported was charged in Texas with teaming up with Al-Qaeda. He told FBI officers who interrogated him that he had spent time with an Al-Qaeda bomb maker in Somalia being trained in assembly techniques.

 

The UN report also described Iranian attempts to obtain Somali uranium. Somalia is reported to have 6,600 tons of recoverable uranium but the mines have never been exploited because of poor security.

 

In addition, Libya provided $1m to finance future training missions and pay salaries. Surface-to-air missiles supplied by Iran are of the type Al-Qaeda used to try to bring down an Israeli charter flight over Kenya in 2002. The missiles are still at large.

 

Zakharov believes that one of the reasons the Eritreans wanted to use the Ilyushin in the clandestine operations was because the freighter’s registration began with the letters UN and therefore might have been mistaken for a United Nations aircraft.

 

When Zakharov discovered the Eritreans’ real use of the plane was for arms shipments and for flying the masked men from Somalia, he cancelled the contract. Zakharov said he first grew suspicious when he found that the seven-man crew were each being paid £2,500 bonuses for every flight.

 

Contacted last week, Tambi denied all knowledge of the deal. However, The Sunday Times has a copy of the contract signed in Moscow and Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, between Aerolift and Eriko Enterprise of Asmara on July 21.

 

The first sanctions-busting arms flight landed at Mogadishu on July 26 and was followed by three arms shipments — a total of some 140 tons — over the next three days.

 

The Sunday Times

[Taliban]

Originally posted by Juje:

The Sunday Times

The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper distributed in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International which is in turn owned by News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns The Times, but the two papers were founded independently and only came under common ownership in 1966. Rupert Murdoch's News International acquired the papers in 1981.

 

There you go!

[Wisdom_Seeker]

Post this rubbish somewhere else!

 

AQ is everywhere, how many soldiers do AQ has, 5 million? How many of them commit suicide? How many of them died in Iraq and Afghanistan? How many of them are in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those are two countries which were attacked by some of the most powerful nations on earth.

 

People AQ is just a bogyman, which the West and the UN uses to attack Muslim countries and people. Hezbollah is Shia and AQ is a Sunning organization, I doubt those two will even be friends or associates.

[Fabregas]

What a load of bullocks(sorry).This is just to justify the illegal and barbaric invasion of Somalia, as sanctioned by the United Nations and its counterparts.And to justify the merciless bombing of Somali civilians by the American war machine. Hezbollah doesn't even allow Sunnis to join it's military ranks.They look at the Salafist groups as heretics and vice versa. This can be said of Iran too whom supported the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. The Taliban and other Sacudiya funded groups oppressed Shias when they came to power.Syria is a run by a Shia minority(Alawi)they have uprooted politcal Islamists from their country in the past. In all reality most of the Arab countries from Emirate, Yemen,Al sacudiya, Masar to Jordan where probably secretly happy at the demise of the Islamic Courts.For, they have like minded groups fighting them in their own countries. Eriteria might have given weapons but there are plenty of countries/agents in the world, who are willing to supply weapons. Anway the U.N becomea joke a long time ago..........

[Taliban]

Originally posted by Abu_Geeljire:

In all reality most of the Arab countries from Emirate, Yemen,Al sacudiya, Masar to Jordan where probably secretly happy at the demise of the Islamic Courts.For, they have like minded groups fighting them in their own countries.

If they have like minded groups fighting them in their own countries, why expect them to help the ICU? As I have already outlined, people should expect the ICU to get help from like minded movements or organizations, not secular governments. The TFG is like minded to those secular governments, therefore, it's natural like minded governments would help it.