NAIROBI, 6 November 2003 — Somalia’s arms free-for-all makes it a convenient springboard for groups such as Al-Qaeda which used a cell based there to stage a deadly bombing in Kenya a year ago, warned a UN report that gives new details of the attack.
“The terrorists responsible for the bombing of the Paradise Hotel in Mombasa (on Nov. 28, 2002) and the attempted attack on Flight 582 from Mombasa to Tel Aviv brought missiles from Yemen via Somalia to Kenya,” said the UN-commissioned assessment of the arms embargo imposed on Somalia in 1992.
Because of the embargo’s persistent violations, “transnational terrorists have been able to obtain ... man-portable air defense systems, light anti-tank weapons and explosives” from Somalia, said the report obtained by AFP yesterday.
“Additional weapons may have since (last year’s attacks) been imported into Somalia solely for the purpose of carrying out further terrorist attacks,” it warned.
The panel of experts that prepared the report said “it remains relatively easy to obtain surface-to-air missiles and import them to Somalia” and that “military hardware of all types and quantities is available in Yemen.”
“Somalia’s lawless, largely ungoverned territory has enhanced the vulnerability of the entire region to criminals and extremists,” the report said.
Twelve Kenyans, three Israelis and three bombers were killed in the attack on the Paradise Hotel, which was used predominantly by Israeli tourists.
The failed bid to shoot down the airliner with “Strela 2” surface-to-air missiles took place almost simultaneously.
Somalia has lacked an effective central government since the 1991 ouster of president Mohammed Siad Bare. Since then a plethora of well-armed clan-based factions have been in an almost constant state of low-level war.
This war is waged using “low-cost assault rifles, pistols, hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, heavy and medium machine guns and anti-aircraft cannons deployed in a ground attack role,” the report said.
It explained that the flow of goods to and from Somalia is virtually unrestricted because its “borders with its neighbors are long, remote and generally without controls on either side.”
“Cargo going to and through Somalia is not often inspected ... especially when cargo is for transshipment or re-export,” it said.
Some 1,250 flights go or out of Somalia every month, with very limited regulation, according to the experts.
The document outlined the sequence of events between Al-Qaeda’s deadly 1998 bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, last year’s attacks on the Kenyan coast and the escape of some of the surviving perpetrators to Mogadishu.
After the 1998 attacks, which killed 224 people, Al-Qaeda began reorganizing in east Africa, under the leadership of fugitive Comoran national Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, the report said.
By November 2001, a cell had formed in Mogadishu and by the following April “targets had been identified and were under surveillance,” it added.
Missiles made in the Soviet Union in 1978 and Bulgarian-manufactured launchers were procured from Yemen, possibly from a shipment given to a Somali warlord by the Eritrean government, the report alleged.
It said that the cell split into four units, one remaining in Mogadishu, one attacking the hotel, one trying in vain to shoot down the airliner and the fourth organizing the escape from the Kenyan island of Lamu.
“Most of the team remained in Mogadishu for several months after the attacks” said the report, adding that one, Suleiman Ahmed Hemed, “was arrested in a joint Kenyan-American operation in April 2003.
News reports at the time did not identify the man arrested.
“Other members of the team subsequently returned to Kenya but at least four remain in Somalia,” the report said.
Eight Kenyans currently face trial for murder over their alleged roles in the Kenya attacks.
