U.S. shifts its sights toward Somalia in war against terrorism

James Astill, Guardian News Service, Nairobi

Washington is fueling speculation that Somalia, the second most war-torn corner of the Islamic world, will become the next target in the war against terror. "Somalia has been a place that has harbored al-Qaeda and, to my knowledge, still is," said the U.S. defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, last week.

But should we accept Rumsfeld's "knowledge"? The United Nations, which unlike Rumsfeld has staff based in Somalia, says there are no terrorists there. And what action could he take against a country leveled by a decade of conflict?

America 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.

Subsequent American policy and public sentiment towards Africa have been shaped by this pointless, US$3 billion exercise. America would not waste its altruism on Africa again -- not even in Rwanda, a year later.

A year after America's 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, America 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 U.S. undersecretary of state for Africa Walter Kansteiner recently described as a policy of "total benign neglect".

Speculation about America's renewed interest in Somalia began within days of the hijack attacks, when a Somali group, al- Itihaad al-Islamiya (Islamic Unity), appeared on the U.S. 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.

Al-Itihaad emerged in 1991 as one of numerous militias wrestling for power. But, unlike the others, it was fighting not for clan interests but to establish an Islamic state. It had some successes before being pushed into the Gedo region of central Somalia. Ethiopia suspected it 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 Islamists 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. "We have ample evidence" of al-Qaeda activities in Somalia, he said.

Ethiopia is actively trying to destabilize its ruined neighbor out of a longstanding, partly justified, fear of the effect a united Somalia would have on its own 3 million ethnic Somalis. To strike Somalia on Ethiopia's advice would be like invading Pakistan on a tip-off from India.

Al-Itihaad appeared on America's hitlist because of its alleged responsibility for the assassination attempts in Ethiopia's capital. 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-Itihaad 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 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 Islamist organization itself, all say that after its defeat in Gedo, al-Itihaad substantially disbanded its militia and adopted a policy of winning Somalis over to its fundamentalist agenda by providing schools, courts and basic health services. Rumors have persisted that al-Itihaad has a training camp on Ras Kamboni island, near the Kenyan border. But a UN mission post-September 11 found only an orphanage.

Even if Rumsfeld has no firm evidence of al-Qaeda activity in Somalia, no Somali would be surprised if he launched strikes. Before abandoning Somalia, America sent helicopter gunships to kill Mohamed Farah Aideed, the warlord chiefly responsible for the country's chaos. They succeeded in killing at least 70 people, according to the Red Cross, but not Aideed, who wasn't there.

Rumsfeld would be hard pushed to find anything to hit with a missile. The ruination of Somalia -- the mounds of rubble that pass for Mogadishu, the derelict shells of its port and airport -- is beyond imagining. Targeted killing of al-Itihaad members would be more likely. Likelier still would be some effort to patrol Somalia's vast coastline, preventing bin Laden's associates from fleeing there.

Rumsfeld's words should be of great concern to everyone on either side of the war on terrorism. 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? Whatever he decides, don't expect to see U.S. marines landing in Mogadishu.