US convening International meeting on Somalia crisis
June 9, 2006 (WASHINGTON) — The U.S. is inviting on short notice European and African countries to a meeting in New York next week on ways to deal with gains by Islamic militias in Somalia.
U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack had no information on the precise location of the meeting or the identity of the participants.
The haste with which the meeting is being convened reflected concern here about the tightening grip of the militias on Mogadishu and other population centers in Somalia.
On Tuesday, U.S. President George W. Bush indicated concern that Somalia could become as Afghanistan was under the Taliban.
“There’s instability in Somalia,” Bush said. “The first concern, of course, is to make sure that Somalia does not become an al-Qaida safe haven – it doesn’t become a place from which terrorists can plot and plan.”
The gathering in New York will mark the inaugural meeting of what will become a permanent mechanism under which interested nations will attempt to devise common strategies toward the troubled East African country. The club will be known, McCormack said, as the Somalia Contact Group.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer will head the U.S. delegation to the meeting. McCormack said a goal of the meeting will be to support Somalia’s transitional government, a weak entity that has no presence in the capital. Its main strength comes from the many foreign governments, the U.S. included, that support it.
U.S. concern about the triumph of the Islamic militias has been heightened by the presence of what the State Department calls “foreign terrorists” in the militia ranks.
The Islamic radicals seized control of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, on Monday, defeating U.S.-backed warlords in weeks of fighting that left more than 330 people dead.
U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, one of the few members of Congress who pays close attention to Somalia, expressed concern this week about U.S. policy in a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Despite instability throughout Somalia, Feingold said there is “an absence of a unified and comprehensive U.S. government strategy for Somalia that deals with the full range of challenges facing that country.”
He noted that the most recent State Department report on international terrorism says that Somalia has no functioning central government and that parts of the country “have become havens for terrorist and other illicit activities, threatening the security of the whole region.”
Feingold said he was troubled that “we have not matched this reports implications with the attention, resources, and strategy that are needed.”
(ST/AP)