US doesn’t want Ethiopia military presence in Somalia – official

Dec 15, 2006 (WASHINGTON) — The State Department’s senior official on Africa says the United States does not want an Ethiopian military buildup in Somalia, despite the growing strength there of an Islamic force the Americans say are tied to al-Qaida.

Growing tension in the Horn of Africa country, which has been without an effective government since 1991, threatens to erupt into a regional war. The United States and the United Nations are supporting a feckless transitional secular government, which also is backed by Ethiopia, as a bulwark against the Islamic Courts militants. The courts control roughly the entire country except the town where the transitional government is based.

“We have said repeatedly that the only solution to the crisis in Somalia is through dialogue,” Jendayi Frazer, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, told reporters Thursday.

The Bush administration is pushing for creation of an African force to train and protect the transition government but is opposed to military intervention by Somalia’s neighbors, including Ethiopia, against the Islamic militants, Frazer said.

She said a recent U.N. resolution backed by the United States, which authorizes the African force, specifically demands that for Somalia’s neighbors to respect its borders.

Some press reports have suggested that the Bush administration is giving tacit support for an Ethiopian military intervention to support the secular authority, known as the transitional federal government.

The U.N. backed transitional government is hunkered down in the western Somalia town of Baidoa and has been unable to expand its reach further. The Islamic militants, operating under the umbrella of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), control much of the southern part of the country and have now circled Baidoa.

The United States has accused the group of sheltering suspects in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which were blamed on Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network.

U.S. intelligence believes the UIC is receiving significant financial support from sources in other countries including Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Yemen, Frazer said.

“And I’m not talking tens of thousands of dollars,” she said. “I’m talking more, you know, millions.”

Frazer said the United States has raised the problem with some of those countries and is working to build an international monitoring network to eliminate the funding.

(AP)