December 5, 2001	Wednesday	Ramazan 19, 1422

NAIROBI: The US is fuelling speculation that Somalia, the second most war-torn corner of the Muslim world, will become the next target in the war against terror. “Somalia has been a place that has harboured Al Qaeda and, to my knowledge, still is,” said the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, last week. But should Rumsfeld’s ‘knowledge’ be accepted? The UN, which unlike Rumsfeld has staff based in Somalia, says there are no terrorists there. And what action could he take against a country levelled by a decade of conflict?

The US does not have happy memories of Somalia. In late 1992, it landed 2,000 marines in Mogadishu to restore order to a failed state ravaged by warlords and stricken by famine. A year and a half later, it hastily pulled out after 18 of its elite special force members were killed. US policy and public sentiment towards Africa have been shaped by this pointless, $3 billion exercise. America would not waste its altruism on Africa again, not even in Rwanda, a year later.

A year after the US retreat, the UN mission that replaced it left too. Somalia’s subsequent descent into ever more complicated clan feuding continues to this day, little interrupted by a UN-sponsored administration.

Since 1995, the US has gathered intelligence about Somalia through its embassies in Nairobi and Addis Ababa. But only military intelligence agencies, unencumbered by state department security rules, could have visited Mogadishu in the past seven years. And before Sept 11, they had no interest in doing so. It would not have been consistent with what the US undersecretary of state for Africa Walter Kansteiner recently described as a policy of “total benign neglect”.

Speculation about renewed US interest in Somalia began within days of the hijack attacks, when a Somali group, Al Ittihaad Al Islamiya (Islamic Unity), appeared on the US hitlist of foreign terrorist organizations. Since no embassy staff have visited Somalia or admit to having learned anything about terrorism there since the attacks, Rumsfeld’s ‘knowledge’ probably pre-dates them.

Ethiopia suspected Al Ittihaad of plotting to stir up its marginalized, ethnic-Somali citizens and of a series of assassination attempts in Addis Ababa. In 1997 it sent in troops to clear the hardliners out. It captured and killed hundreds, including 26 non-Somalis of “the same groups that make up Al Qaeda”, Ethiopia’s ambassador to the UN recently told the security council. Ethiopia is actively trying to destabilize its ruined neighbour out of a longstanding, partly justified, fear of the effect a united Somalia would have on its own three million ethnic Somalis. To strike Somalia on Ethiopia’s advice would be like invading Pakistan on a tip-off from India.

Al Ittihaad appeared on the US hitlist because of its alleged responsibility for the assassination attempts in Addis Ababa. There are no other terrorism allegations against it and, besides those raised by Ethiopia, no substantial allegations of a link to Al Qaeda. “We have seen no connections between Al Ittihaad and Al Qaeda,” said Randolph Kent, the UN’s resident coordinator for Somalia. “Nor for that matter have we seen any evidence of the terrorist activity which is exciting the rest of the world.”

The only separate charge that Al Qaeda activity was engaged in terrorism in Somalia stems from the trial of suspects in the east Africa embassy bombings early this year. According to the testimony of a former Osama bin Laden employee, Al Qaeda was responsible for the 18 special force members’ deaths. But the charge was later dropped for lack of evidence.

Somalia’s government, the UN, independent analysts and the hardline organization itself, all say that after its defeat in Gedo, Al Ittihaad substantially disbanded its militia and adopted a policy of winning Somalis over to its agenda by providing schools, courts and basic health services. Rumours have persisted that Al Ittihaad has a training camp on Ras Kamboni island, near the Kenyan border. But a UN mission post-Sept 11 found only an orphanage. Rumsfeld’s words should be of great concern to everyone. Could he be using the world’s most broken country - a ‘soft target’, in intelligence terms - to maintain flagging momentum for a wider war on terrorism? —Dawn/The Guardian News Service.