MOGADISHU, 7 November 2003 — Shocked by a UN report that their country hosted Al-Qaeda fighters, Somalis said yesterday they feared the findings might disrupt international attempts to heal more than a decade of anarchy.
The United Nations’ report said Al-Qaeda fighters trained and armed in Somalia organized a suicide attack on an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya a year ago and a botched attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner taking off nearby.
At least four Al-Qaeda suspects remain in Somalia, where additional weapons may have been imported for the purpose of carrying out further attacks in East Africa, according to a draft of the report obtained by Reuters on Tuesday.
Somalis, long weary of the fighting between rival warlords, said they feared the report’s revelations of suspected activity by Osama Bin Laden’s followers would undermine efforts to reverse the country’s long collapse.
“Before, I thought there was only a little such activity going on, but this huge activity in our country is a danger to our innocent people,” said Said Duale, manager of the Wireless African Communication Company. “This kind of activity will prevent Somalia getting back to toward law and order.”
Some Somali faction leaders have pointed to the danger of militant activity as a reason for increased international efforts to restore central authority.
In lawless Mogadishu, the word is out: Catch a terrorist, collect rewards as high as $5 million. At least four Al-Qaeda terrorist suspects are in Somalia, Kenyan officials and UN experts say, and Americans are trying to capture them in a country without an effective central government for more than a decade, officials and gunmen told The Associated Press.
US agents are working through proxies and have recruited a network of informants who keep an eye out for suspected terrorists, according to a Western security official and several prominent Somalis, all speaking on condition of anonymity.
So far, those efforts are known to have netted at least one Al-Qaeda suspect — Suleiman Abdalla Salim Hemed, who’s accused of playing a role in the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Africa —but rumors abound of gunmen kidnapping Arabs and turning them over to US agents.
A Somali warlord, Mohammed Dheere, coordinated the March capture of Hemed at the behest of US officials, gunmen familiar with the operation told AP, speaking privately for fear of reprisals. Most Somalis believe Dheere was generously rewarded.
