US asks Somali militias to join counterterrorism war
April 11, 2006 (CAIRO) — A team working for the US Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, has asked Somali faction and militia leaders to join the American security campaign aimed at extending influence and hunting down the five Al-Qa’idah members who are believed to have fled to the centre of the Somali capital, Mogadishu.
A senior official in the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (TFGS) told the London based Al-Sharq al-Awsat — on its edition of 11 April — they had reports which indicated some representatives from the American government and the armed Somali leaders had been holding contact meetings so as to prepare a large-scale campaign to apprehend the five members, three of whom are believed to be holding non-Somali passports.
The official, who requested anonymity, said the TFGS had not yet obtained the names of the Al-Qa’idah suspects, but had statements in principle relating to the American dossier, which could not be sourced to any official organ.
Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi has on numerous occasions requested the American government to stop all contacts with the various Somali sides behind his government’s back. The prime minister has not received any response of acceptance from the US Administration.
The American campaign against hard-line and fundamentalist Somali groups coincides with fears of renewed hostilities between the Islamic courts militia and those under the umbrella of the Anti-Terrorism Alliance. The federal government believes the latter group is receiving financial and technical support from the Americans.
The American intelligence services say Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, one of the more prominent leaders of the Somali fundamentalist groups gave away a girl to one of the terrorists in marriage. The sheikh however told Al-Sharq al-Awsat he did not play host to any terrorist.
He said these kind of stories were being repeated because of the enmity which the Americans harbour against the Somali people.
Aweys, 60, who spoke to the newspaper from Mogadishu, said Al-Qa’idah was not present in Somalia. He said Somalia was made up of clans and every clan knew its members, adding it was impossible to hide any foreigner in a country destroyed by civil war.
Sheikh Hassan Dahir said it was only America which was claiming that Al-Qa’idah was present in Somalia.
He said the Al-Ittihad al-Islami organization, which had been accused of links with Al-Qa’idah and of receiving technical help from it, was no longer visible in the Somali scene.
Aweys, who is being hunted down by American and Ethiopian intelligence agents and who is accused of aiding terrorists, said these allegations had no impact on his stated views about the indispensability of creating an Islamic state in Somalia.
“I operate in the open and it is no secret that my political agenda is how to create an Islamic state in Somalia. I have no fear of falling into the hands of the American or Ethiopian intelligence services,” the shaykh said.
He expressed his opposition to the plan by the Somali president, Abdullahi Youcif Ahmad and Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi to invite peacekeeping troops from neighbouring states, such as Ethiopia, with who Somalia has had a history of animosities.
He said Somalis regarded such forces as detrimental to their interest, viewed them as colonisers and would use every means to fight them.
He urged the TFGS to stop its attempts to cobble together forces from abroad.
(ST)