posted July 24, 2006 03:00 AM              

By Mohammed Adow
BBC News

The history of Somalia and Ethiopia is marred by distrust, animosity and war. Suspicion of neighbouring expansionism and political extremism is deeply rooted in both states.

Reports that Ethiopian troops have crossed Somalia's border and setup camp in Baidoa, home to the weak Somali transitional government, will not surprise seasoned observers of the often stormy relationship between the Horn of Africa rivals.

Ethiopia has often seen Somalia as a territory from where attacks against it could be launched.

This fear became even more real after Somalia descended into anarchy 15 years ago and the country was divided into armed fiefdoms controlled and ruled by warlords.

Rebel fears

As Somalia has had no central authority, Ethiopia has often driven its forces into Somali territory - ostensibly to protect itself as well as to support friendly warlords.

For Ethiopia, its long and porous border with Somalia allows possible militant elements to take advantage of its neighbour's lawlessness.

The existence of its own active rebel groups - namely the Oromo Liberation Front and the Ogaden National Liberation Front (a group of Somali origin) - has exacerbated these fears.

Ethiopia repeatedly denies its incursions into Somalia, perhaps fearing international vilification.

But on a reporting trip to south-western Somalia six years ago, I had a firsthand encounter with Ethiopian forces on Somali soil.

In Bula Hawo, near the Kenyan border, the town's administration desperately wanted coverage of a drought that was ravaging the region.

One of the officials took me to an officer in charge of the Ethiopian troops garrisoned there, to get permission for me to travel in the region.

The letter I was issued enabled me cross safely through the Ethiopian checkpoints in the Somali towns of Dolow and Luq.

Bad blood

Both Ethiopia and Somalia belong to several regional bodies including the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad) and The African Union (AU), which have been instrumental in the current peace process.

The bad blood between the two nations reared its ugly head again when Igad unveiled recent plans to send regional peacekeeping troops to Somalia.

Many Somalis were outraged at the thought of Ethiopian troops - even peacekeeping ones - being deployed.

Ethiopia has also been uneasy with the military successes of the Union Islamic Courts (UIC), the Islamists who have pacified the capital, Mogadishu, and now control huge swathes of southern Somalia.

Yet the vehement rejection of Ethiopian peacekeepers and Ethiopia's stern warnings to the UIC not to attack Baidoa mirror deep-seated suspicions that have characterised their relations dating back to 1960, when Somalia gained independence.

Bloody wars

Somalia has always maintained that Ethiopia occupies a part of its territory - the Ogaden region - ceded by British colonialists to Ethiopia.

Ethiopia disagrees and the failure of the Organisation of African Union (now the AU) to resolve the dispute led Somalia to declare war on Ethiopia in 1964. It also sponsored an Ethiopian rebel movement against the then-government of Emperor Haile Selassie.

But it is the 1977 Ethiopia-Somalia war that lingers more prominently in the minds of the people of the Horn of Africa.

The conflict was not only bloody but also costly to both nations and it did not in any way alter the situation in Somalia's favour.

It is also worth noting that as Somalia slipped into anarchy, the neighbours were sponsoring each other's rebel movements.

Threat

No-one understands better than the current Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi what a threat an unfriendly Somalia poses to Ethiopia.

He knows Somalia very well, as he lived in Mogadishu when he was a liberation leader in the 1980s.

He came to power toppling Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991, the same year the Somali government collapsed.

With his ascent to power came the search for a favourable regime in Somalia.

Somalia's interim government, led by long-time Ethiopian ally Abdullahi Yusuf, has offered Ethiopia this hope.

Thus any other power threatening to overthrow Mr Yusuf's administration will be viewed as an aggressor against Ethiopia that must be fought at whatever costs.

Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/5201470.stm

Published: 2006/07/21 05:57:17 GMT

© BBC MMVI

posted July 24, 2006 03:03 AM              

For 15 years, Mayow Abdalla has been afraid to leave his house.

Mr Abdalla, a Somali of Yemeni origin who lives in the old district of Hamar-weyne in Mogadishu, had his own electronics shop until the Siad Barre regime fell in 1991, and the warlords took over.
"I am jobless but my brothers in Europe and Saudi Arabia send me money," he says.

"Some of my money was going directly into the hands of a militiaman, who told me he was providing security for my house, my six children, my wife and myself - on his own initiative."

"Now the guy has left, fearing that the Islamic courts would arrest him for his wrongdoings and I am planning to open a small shop outside my house."

Since the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) seized control of Mogadishu on 5 June, life in Mogadishu is getting better, and business people are optimistic.

Less extortion

There are far fewer check-points, where gunmen used to extort money from passing motorists and commercial vehicles.

The UIC gunmen do operate road blocks but they do not demand payment from civilians.

quote:

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Now, thank God, I am with my family and giving up all my bad habits
Salad Ga'al, former fighter

---

As a result food prices have dropped.

One kilogramme of rice used to cost 9,500 Somali shillings (65 US cents) but the price is now 3,500 shillings.

Camel meat has also fallen from 30,000 shillings per kilo, to 22,000.

"We no longer hire security militia for our commodities and we don't pay militia check-points - that is why the goods are still at their normal prices," said businessman Abdikarin Abukar Fodare.

Refugees

The cautious optimism extends even to the city's refugee camps.

Safiya Hassan, who lives in one of the camps, earns a little money by washing clothes and utensils and uses it to support her four children and her sick husband, Januune.

"Nothing has changed in our life but it did change for others," she says.
"So if the life of other people in the city changes, ours also changes, because I depend on them via my work and God's destiny."

The defeat of the warlords has also brought relief to those who were recruited to fight with them.

"My family was the gunmen, my bed was on the battle-wagons and the narcotic leaves, khat, was my favourite thing," says Salad Ga'al, a teenage boy who served six years in the militia.

"Now, thank God, I am with my family and giving up all my bad habits," he said.

"I have to create a new life and go to school for my future."

Mobile phones

If you go around the city and ask people about the changes in Mogadishu, many would first tell you about how things are more secure, however fragile the security may seem.

Car drivers and owners tell you they have no fear of robbery because there is no shelter for the perpetrators under the rule of Islamic courts.

Those who have mobile phones are happy that now they can answer their calls anywhere.
But with the young Islamic militia opposed to dancing, television and music, residents fear the future may turn into something like Afghanistan under the Taleban.

Being Muslims, most residents are reluctant to reject the idea of Islamic rule. Yet they are not happy with what they see as increasing radicalism in the city.

Robbers are arrested every day and are being put in jail.

In the 1990s, the first Islamic courts amputated the hands of thieves and stoned to death murderers and rapists.

One of the UIC's leaders, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, say it is not possible to enforce such Islamic punishments now but he says Sharia should become Somalia's law in the future.

Guns

The biggest worry is the weapons which are still in the hands of clan-based militia and ordinary Somalis.

Piles of AK-47 rifles and ammunition are still on sale at the Irtokte weapons market.

Sa'id Mo'alin Kulow, a businessman at the market, says supplies of weapons from Yemen and Eritrea are still being smuggled into the bazaar despite the Islamic courts taking control.
"But previously Ethiopia was among the suppliers," he says.

Many Somalis and the transitional government would prefer the deployment of foreign troops in the country to disarm the militia, because the government is weak and no clan militia wants to hand their weapons to another clan.

The regional body, Igad, has promised to send troops, but the Islamic courts strongly oppose such a deployment and have called for war against foreign troops.

But further fighting is the last thing most Somalis want - they want to be left alone for the first time in 15 years to get on with the business of earning enough money to feed their families.

Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/africa/5168008.stm

Published: 2006/07/11 10:53:35 GMT

posted July 24, 2006 03:07 AM              

The Somali gunmen who shot dead two people watching a World Cup match have been arrested and will face Islamic justice, an Islamist leader has said.

Hardliner Sheikh Dahir Aweys says the killing of a cinema owner and a young girl was an accident. The gunmen could face the death penalty.

The Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) controls much of southern Somalia.

The World Cup broadcast ban is not official UIC policy, but some courts do not allow matches to be shown.

Somalia has had no effective central government since 1991.

Meanwhile, video evidence has emerged that apparently shows foreign Islamist fighters helping the UIC in its fight for control of the capital, Mogadishu and Jowhar last month.

quote:

---

The [training] camp exists... but there are no foreigners
Sheikh Sharif Ahmed

---

The new rulers of Mogadishu have denied the persistent allegations by members of the interim government that it is in league with foreign militia.
For the first time since last month's fighting, a delegation of diplomats have been in Mogadishu to try to persuade the UIC leaders to agree to the deployment of an African peacekeeping force.

But the Islamists still fiercely oppose the move, requested by interim President Abdullahi Yusuf.

His government is confined to the town of Baidoa and is unable to relocate to Mogadishu, now under the courts' control.

The diplomats are from the Arab League, African Union and the East African regional organisation, Igad, which last month said it intended to send a peacekeeping force of Ugandan and Sudanese troops.

However, a Ugandan army spokesman has said no troops would be deployed until it is safe to do so.

'Stones thrown'

Mr Aweys confirmed that the gunmen from a militia loyal to the UIC had arrived to close down the cinema in the town of Dhuusa Marreeb in central Galgadud district, where a crowd had gathered to watch the Germany-Italy World Cup semi-final on Tuesday.

Some of the football fans began to protest and the gunmen fired in the air in an attempt to disperse them.

After this the angry crowd began to throw stones at the militia, who then fired at the demonstrators.
Mr Aweys told the radio station HornAfrik that he had been talking to elders in the area - his home region - and it was agreed that those responsible for killing the football fans would be dealt with by Sharia.

The Islamic courts have introduced Sharia in areas under their authority.

In some places, this has included a ban on cinemas and on broadcasts of World Cup games because they have carried advertisements for alcohol.

Last week, another UIC leader, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, denied that a World Cup ban was official policy.

Mr Aweys, who denies US accusations that he has links to al-Qaeda, has called on the interim government to impose Sharia law.

But Mr Ahmed has offered assurances that the UIC does not want a Taleban-style state.

Training camp

Over the weekend, the UIC leadership distanced itself from remarks by Osama bin Laden in the al-Qaeda's leader's most recent audio tape praising efforts to create an Islamic state in Somalia.

Now a promotional Islamist video in Arabic depicts what appears to be foreign fighters supporting the Islamic courts in fighting last month.

The video, a copy of which has been acquired by the Associated Press news agency, is done with a hand-held camera in the same style as similar films showing fighting in Iraq from the perspective of the insurgents.

It shows fighting in Somalia and what appears to be armed Arabs training at a camp in Somalia.

But Mr Ahmed has denied this: "This is related to misconceptions and bad information... To tell you the truth that camp, it exists as a camp - but there are no foreigners."

Somalis, weary after 15 years without an effective national government, are worried about a possible new conflict between Islamist and secular forces in their country, possibly backed by Ethiopia and the US, concerned about the spread of radical Islam.

Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/africa/5153800.stm

Published: 2006/07/06 15:09:03 GMT

posted August 02, 2006 03:30 AM              

Somali Islamists Consolidate Power

By Alisha Ryu
Mogadishu
01 August 2006

Ryu report (Real Audio) - Download 504k
Listen to Ryu report (Real Audio)

The rise of hardliners in Somalia's Islamist group is fueling regional and western concerns that a Taleban-style regime will be established and the country will become a breeding ground for terrorists. The group's top leader is Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who spoke to VOA Correspondent Alisha Ryu in Mogadishu by telephone from his base in the Galgadud region of central Somalia.

Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys stands inside a mosque in northern Mogadishu, in this Oct. 12, 2005, file photo
It is rare for the 62-year-old Islamic leader to be seen in public or to grant interviews. But he said he felt it was important to talk to VOA so that he could set the record straight about his vision for Somalia's future.

Aweys says Somalia is not Afghanistan and the only thing the two countries have in common is the religion of Islam. He continues, "If you ask me what Somalia is and will be in the future, it is Islamic. But that is where the similarity between Somalia and Afghanistan ends, and the United States has no right to ask or know what we will or will not do."

The cleric would not clarify how the country under his rule would differ from that of Afghanistan's former Taleban rulers, who imposed the harshest form of Islamic laws, called sharia, and gave sanctuary to Osama bin Laden.

But questions about Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys' extremist leanings and ties to terrorist groups have been raised since the early 1990s, when he headed a Somali Islamic militia called al-Itihaad al-Islamiya.

Aweys maintains the group was only concerned with fighting Ethiopian attempts to establish a political and military foothold in Somalia. But western terrorism experts say the al-Itihaad group was made up of hardcore militants, determined to turn the country into a fundamentalist Islamic state.

Aweys is on a U.S. list of people linked to terrorism. But he denies he is a terrorist and says his only purpose for spreading Islamic rule is to help Somalia recover from 15 years of lawlessness and factional divisions.

"What Somalis want is to unite under Islamic law," said Aweys. He says unlike what the West thinks about different interpretations of Sharia, there is only one set of Islamic laws, written in the holy Koran. Aweys continues, "The West thinks that is bringing terrorism to Somalia. I tell you that we are installing Islamic laws to promote peace and we will not stop until all of Somalia is under sharia."

The Islamic leader blames neighboring Ethiopia as being the biggest obstacle to what he says is the country's desire to unite under sharia. The Islamists have accused Ethiopia of sending troops to protect Somalia's secular, but weak, transitional government in the town of Baidoa.

Islamic Courts militiamen burn an Ethiopian flag in Mogadishu
But interim-government leaders counter that Islamists are accepting arms and troops from Ethiopia's arch enemy, Eritrea.

Ethiopia says Eritrea is trying to use the Islamists to start a proxy war against Ethiopia in Somalia.

Eritrea denies the charges. Aweys says, as far as he is aware, his group has never accepted weapons from Eritrea nor has that country sent troops into Somalia.

"The only troops we have in Somalia are Ethiopians and it is the Ethiopians who made up this story about Eritrea as an excuse to invade Somalia," he said.

Aweys says that because the Ethiopians are still in Somalia, Islamists and government leaders are unable to hold a meaningful dialogue to form a unity government.

The cleric says the only way the two sides can ever sit together for talks is if the Ethiopians pull out of Somalia for good.

Ethiopia rejects the Islamist charges, but the largely Christian country says it reserves the right to defend its borders from Islamist aggression.

posted August 02, 2006 03:34 AM              

Perfect storm brewing in Horn of Africa

By GWYNNE DYER
LONDON -- It has the makings of a perfect storm extending right across the Horn of Africa. The 15-year war of all against all in Somalia is threatening to morph into an international war bringing chaos and disaster to the rest of the region, and the al-Qaida-obsessed "securocrats" in Washington are the ones to blame.

The Somalis have nobody to blame but themselves for their basic plight. Although Somalia has only one ethnic group, one language and one religion, its people are deeply divided by clan, and when long-ruling dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991, the clan leaders were unable to unite and form a new government. Instead, the country fell into civil war and anarchy.

A U.S.-led military intervention in 1992 tried to restore order, but after 18 American soldiers and a thousand Somalis were killed in a single day (the "Black Hawk Down" episode), U.S. forces pulled out. By 1995 all the other United Nations troops had followed, and Somalia was abandoned to its fate as a real-life version of the Mad Max films: no government, no police, no schools, no law, just the trigger-happy troops of rival warlords roaring around in "technicals," pickups mounted with machine guns or anti-aircraft cannon, stealing and killing to their heart's content.

But U.S. interest in Somalia reignited after the terrorist attacks of 2001, because as a Muslim country without a government it seemed a potential haven for Islamist terrorists. At first American policy concentrated on re-creating a national government, and by 2004 a transitional regime blessed by the United Nations and the African Union and led by one of the warlords, Abdulahi Yusuf, was installed in the town of Baidoa. But he was not in the capital, Mogadishu, because the three warlords who ruled that city rejected his authority. So did most other Somalis.

Meanwhile, a different kind of authority was emerging in Mogadishu: the Islamic courts. It was an attempt, paid for by local businessmen, to restore order by using religious law to settle disputes and punish criminals.

Each clan's court has jurisdiction only over its own clan members, but it was a start on rebuilding a law-abiding society, and in 2004 they all joined to form the Union of Islamic Courts. Unfortunately, the mere use of the word "Islamic" spooked the U.S. government.

As usual, Washington's response was mainly military. It decided that the Union of Islamic Courts was a threat, and in February CIA planes delivered large amounts of money and guns to the three warlords who dominated Mogadishu. They named themselves the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism, and started trying to suppress the UIC.

Rarely has any CIA plot backfired so comprehensively. Volunteers flooded in from all over southern Somalia to resist the warlords' attack on the only institution that showed any promise of restoring law and order in the country.

By early June the last of the warlords had been driven out of Mogadishu, which is now entirely in the hands of the UIC, and for the first time in 15 years ordinary citizens are safe from robbery, rape and murder.

It is by no means clear that the UIC must fall into the hands of Islamist radicals who will turn Somalia into a safe haven for anti-American terrorists. Left to their own devices, the moderate majority of Somalis can probably ensure that what finally emerges is a moderate Islamic government with strong popular support.

But Washington panicked, and last week it let Ethiopia send troops in to protect the isolated "Interim Government" in Baidoa. That probably means renewed war, and across borders this time.

Ethiopia has five times as many people as Somalia and has already fought two border wars with it, in 1964 and 1977. (Somalia claims most of Ethiopia's Ogaden region, where the people are mostly Muslim and ethnically Somali.) But now it's more complex:

Ethiopia is a largely Christian country with big and restive Muslim minorities, and President Meles Zenawi is terrified that militant Islamists in power in Somalia might help those minorities to rebel, but this would not be happening without Washington's consent. It is exactly the wrong response.

On June 10, Abdulahi Yusuf's unelected "parliament" in Baidoa voted to seek foreign troops. On June 20 the first Ethiopian troops were spotted in Baidoa -- and on the same day Sheik Mukhtar Robow, the UIC's deputy head of security, declared: "God willing, we will remove the Ethiopians in our country and wage a jihad against them."

Just when Somalia was about to escape from its long nightmare, a new and worse one has appeared: the prospect of a war that would consume the entire Horn of Africa (for Eritrea, teetering on the brink of another war with Ethiopia itself, is already sending aid to the UIC). The entire Horn of Africa could spend the next five years going through a catastrophe similar to what the Great Lakes region of Africa suffered in the later 1990s.

Sometimes you really wish that the State Department, rather than the Pentagon and the White House, ran American foreign policy.

posted August 02, 2006 03:43 AM              

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
NEWS
July 31, 2006
Posted to the web July 31, 2006
Nairobi

As a sign of improved security in Somalia's capital, the first commercial flight in more than a decade left Mogadishu's newly reopened international airport on Sunday.

The city, considered one of the most dangerous places in the world, is under the jurisdiction of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), which controls much of southern Somalia.

"We had two flights by Jubba Airlines to the United Arab Emirates on Sunday," said Abdirahin Aden Weheliye, the airport manager.

Another Jubba flight arrived in Mogadishu at 6:30 am local time on Monday, with 98 passengers from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Jubba, a locally owned airline, used to operate out of Balidogle airport, 110 km northwest of Mogadishu.

Weheliye said the UIC had secured the city and the airport "was now open for business. We expect other airlines to use the facility soon."

Since the UIC took control of Mogadishu, they have removed dozens of checkpoints manned by different militias that were loyal to warlords who used to control the city and its environs.

The arrival and departure of the first passengers from the airport in almost 11 years attracted hundreds of curious onlookers.

"There were hundreds of people trying to get a glimpse of the airline," said a local journalist, who was at the airport. "It brought back memories of better days and hope for a better future. It brought tears to my eyes, happy tears."

The operations manager of Jubba Airlines, Said Qalinle, told IRIN on Monday: "Yesterday morning, we took 98 passengers from Mogadishu to Dubai and in the afternoon another 124." He added that when it had operated out of Balidogle, buses hired by the airline to carry passengers to the airport had to pass seven checkpoints and pay "up to [US] $1,000 per flight", to the militia manning the checkpoints.

posted August 02, 2006 03:48 AM              

The East African Standard (Nairobi)
NEWS
July 30, 2006
Posted to the web July 31, 2006

By Ernest Mpinganjira
Nairobi

The United States' hurry to cut $13 million military aid to Kenya last year has boomeranged. Washington is now reportedly making frantic efforts to reinstate the country on the Pentagon's military training and equipment programmes to pre-empt al Qaeda encroaching further on the Horn of Africa and East Africa.

Commenting on the volatility of the situation in Somalia, where the Islamic Courts Union militia have gained a firm foothold at the expense of the federal transitional government, a Western diplomat told The Sunday Standard in Dar es Salaam on Wednesday that plans were under way in Washington to resume military aid to Kenya "any time between the end of this and beginning of next year."

He disclosed that Kenyan security forces are monitoring the country's borders with Ethiopia and Somalia, where a fresh and multidimensional conflict threatens to further stoke the 15-year-old crisis after the Islamic militia group declined to travel to Khartoum to participate in Sudan-mediated peace talks with President Yusuf Abdullahi's transitional government.

The first signs that things were really looking up after almost a decade of arm-twisting came on Monday, when the State Department announced that President George W. Bush had asked Congress to vote for $335 million assistance to Kenya in the financial year that starts in October.

The quick aid disbursement is reportedly based a US government-funded study that noted, "Kenya is going through a democratic transition following multiparty elections in December 2002 and with Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa and Djibouti, it is regarded as a strategic partner in the war on terrorism."

The unlocking of aid coincided with The Washington Post online edition's report on July 23, which said that the Bush administration was concerned about the escalation of violence in chaotic Somalia, with the potential consequence that it might spill over to the rest of the region.

Add the Zanzibar Islands to the mix and the Comoros islands, which recently elected an Iran-educated Sunni Muslim cleric and businessman, President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi (nick-named the Ayatollah), and the US fears the region suits al Qaeda more than ever before, the diplomat said.

He noted that despite the relative political stability Tanzania has had since independence, the uneasy co-existence between Zanzibar and Tanganyika - the European Union and the US are concerned - exposes the region to terrorism.

The Islanders are increasingly becoming inclined towards the Middle East, considered the eye of international terror.

According to the diplomat, the US was prodded into toning down its anti-Kenya rhetoric following intelligence reports that a Somalia-based al Qaeda-backed al-Itihad terrorist cell had recently bolstered its outfit and was positioning itself to launch a multi-pronged offensive against the US and Britain.

"Kenya, perpetually under pressure to purchase military equipment from the US and Britain or risk cuts in balance of payments support, has been indifferent to threats of aid withdrawal and eventually switched to China and East Asia," he said.

Relations between Kenya and the US have been icy after Nairobi declined last year to sign a bilateral immunity agreement (BIA) in exchange for continued military support. China moved in to fill the void as Kenya went shopping for trading partners in East Asia, the climax being the recent opening of a new embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, he said.

The recent forays Chinese President Hu Jintao made in Africa concluded with a high-profile visit to Nairobi during which he signed a raft of agreements to prospect for oil along the Kenyan coast and the arid areas.

The shift of allegiance to Beijing triggered panic in Washington, whose go-it-alone foreign policy in fighting international terrorism since 9/11 has been stretched by the current flare up in the Middle East between Israel and its Arab neighbours.

"Rather than put in place a foolproof strategy to prevent Kenya and its neighbours from falling prey to al Qaeda, the US chose to use the charm and harm policy.

The outcome was a near foreign policy disaster and now America is paying the price of isolating Kenya," he said.

The "charm and harm" policy alludes to the international travel advisories Britain and the US kept in force for nearly two years warning Western tourists from visiting Kenya in the wake terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001.

Tourism is Kenya's major foreign exchange earner, which last year fetched the country Sh51 billion. It now emerges that the advisories were blackmail that has proved counterproductive to US and British interests in the region.

Although Kenya's neighbours, such as Tanzania and Ethiopia, have more serious corruption problems, London and Washington were resolute in their determination to cast Kenya as graft-ridden to the point of wanting to finance a regime change, the diplomat said.

It is also believed that the West quietly backs a group calling itself Ten Zanzibaris, which is challenging the legality of the merger between Zanzibar and Tanganyika (Mainland) in court.

"The West would rather Zanzibar seceded from the Mainland. In the current set up in which Zanzibar is perpetually grumbling, Europe and America would rather Zanzibar were fully autonomous to pre-empt the infiltration of the Isles by al-Qaeda if the simmering crisis exploded into full scale chaos," the diplomat said.

With Kenya drifting to East Asia and the Somali conflict increasingly threatening to suck in other players like Ethiopia, and the Islamic Courts militia group preparing to mount an offensive to root out the interim government, Washington appears precariously exposed, hence the bid to make up with President Mwai Kibaki's administration.

Kenya is one of nearly 100 countries, most of them African, Washington shut out of the Pentagon's programmes to train and equip militaries because they had declined to sign agreements exempting American troops from prosecution in the International Criminal Court in The Hague for war crimes.

According The Washington Post, the policy has angered senior Pentagon officials, who say the cuts in military aid were shortsighted and had in effect worked in favour of international terrorism.

"Citing Kenya as an example, Pentagon officials say it makes little sense to ask for Kenya's support in fighting terrorism while denying it the money it needs for training and equipping troops," the Post reported.

Pentagon officials and members of the Senate cited the millions of dollars the Chinese government has pumped into infrastructure development and military training in Africa, which have sealed contracts for natural resources such as oil, timber and minerals.

"It's hard to compete with China because of the agility they have in obtaining contracts and then starting projects very quickly without worrying too much about human rights," Gen James Jones of the American-European Command, which has military responsibility for most of Africa, recently told a Senate panel, the Post reported.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is also on record saying, "Blocking military assistance to nations seeking to combat terrorism was 'sort of the same as shooting ourselves in the foot.'"

The US has signed BIAs with 100 countries that have agreed not to surrender US citizens to the ICC without the US government's consent, and vice versa. The agreements are designed to undermine an international treaty, commonly referred to as the Rome treaty, which subjects people accused of genocide and violators of human rights to ICC trial.

posted August 02, 2006 04:20 AM              

Somalia's president told residents of the only town his government controls Tuesday that they have a week to give up their weapons or "every single gun" would be seized by force.

President Abdullahi Yusuf said his government would pay people for any arms surrendered, and that the details of the disarmament plan would be released Wednesday.

He did not say why his government decided on the measure, but two lawmakers have been shot in Baidoa, 155 miles from the capital of Mogadishu, over the past week, one fatally. More than 20 others have resigned in disgust, including four on Tuesday.

Somalia's government has no military and relies on a militia loyal to Yusuf.

The administration was formed two years ago with the support of the United Nations to help Somalia emerge from more than a decade of anarchy, but it has established no real authority.

The government has watched helplessly as Islamic militants with alleged ties to al-Qaida have tightened their grip on southern Somalia and Mogadishu.

Somalia has about 200 members of parliament who were appointed along clan lines to accommodate disparate groups that have the support of Somalis.

"Because of ... the lack of a clear policy, we have decided to resign and join the other former ministers who have already stepped down," said a statement released by the four lawmakers who resigned Tuesday, including the deputy minister for treasury.

Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi barely survived a no-confidence vote in parliament over the weekend, but insisted Tuesday that government would continue to function.

"My government has survived political turmoil, and right now I hope it will stand on its own two legs soon," Gedi told journalists after Tuesday's resignations.

Foreign ministers of the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development met Tuesday in neighboring Kenya to discuss the situation in Somalia. Their agenda was expected to include a report by a fact-finding mission that recommends the quick deployment of a peacekeeping operation - a step rejected by the Islamic group but repeatedly called for by the government.

The report, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, also backs a proposal to lift an international arms embargo to help the government provide security. An U.N.-imposed arms embargo has been in place since 1992, but it has been violated by all sides in the Somali conflict.

The regional group mediated talks beginning four years ago that led to the formation of Somalia's government. Besides Somalia, IGAD members include Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda and Kenya.

The Islamic militants who rule much of the south have imposed strict religious courts, raising fears of an emerging Taliban-style regime. The United States accuses the group of harboring al-Qaida leaders responsible for deadly bombings at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

The militants have brought a remarkable amount of control to a country that has seen little more than chaos since 1991, when longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled. On Monday, 275 militiamen with 50 pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns were sent to central Somalia to break up the bases of Somali pirates who have been kidnapping sailors.

"They will also help people in those areas set up their own Islamic courts and local administrations," Sheik Mohamud Siyad Inda Adde, the group's security chairman, told The Associated Press.

The United States and other Western powers have cautioned outsiders against meddling in Somalia, which has no single ruling authority and can be manipulated by anyone with money and guns. But there is little sign the warning has been heeded.

On Tuesday, Kazakhstan said it was investigating reports that a plane bearing the ex-Soviet republic's national flag delivered weapons for Islamic militants in Somalia twice last week. Somalia's government alleges the deliveries were arms from Eritrea.

Officials in Kazakhstan, a vast oil-rich Central Asian nation, had been involved in a string of illegal arms dealing scandals after the 1991 Soviet collapse, including sales of military equipment to Ethiopia and Congo. Kazakh air operators also often make their planes available for charter.

Associated Press writers Mohamed Sheikh Nor in Mogadishu and Bagila Bukharbayeva in Almaty, Kazakhstan, contributed to this report.

posted August 02, 2006 04:23 AM              

Associated Press

Baidoa, Somalia | Somalia's president told residents of the only town his government controls Tuesday that they have a week to give up their weapons or "every single gun" would be seized by force.

It was unclear how President Abdullahi Yusuf, whose government has no military, would make good on the threat to disarm Baidoa, 155 miles from the capital, Mogadishu.

The administration was formed two years ago with the support of the United Nations to help Somalia emerge from more than a decade of anarchy, but it has established no real authority.

The government has watched helplessly as Islamic militants with alleged ties to al-Qaida have tightened their grip on southern Somalia and Mogadishu. Two lawmakers have been shot in Baidoa over the past week, one fatally, and more than 20 others have resigned in disgust.

Four of the ministers resigned Tuesday.

posted August 02, 2006 04:25 AM              

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
NEWS
August 1, 2006
Posted to the web August 1, 2006
Nairobi

Four more ministers resigned from the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) on Tuesday, days after 18 others quit claiming that Prime Minister Ali Muhammad Gedi had failed to promote reconciliation in the strife-torn nation.

"We have resigned because the prime minister refused to heed our call to resign after a majority of MPs [members of parliament] voted against him," Sa'id Hassan Mire, the Deputy Minister for Rural Development, said.

He was referring to a no-confidence vote Gedi survived on Sunday. Although the number of MPs who voted for Gedi's removal was more than those who wanted him retained, the motion was defeated because it needed the support of 139 out of 275 MPs.

Government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari told IRIN the ministers who resigned "were [among] those MPs who voted against the prime minister and were about to be fired". He added, "They just jumped out of the window before they were shown the door."

Dinari said the latest resignations would not deter the government from doing its work and Gedi "had no reason to resign, since he won the vote of confidence".

Mire said his group resigned after it became apparent that "nothing would change and no progress would be made in tackling the problems facing the country under the current prime minister". More ministers, he claimed, would resign soon. "I know of at least 12 ministers and deputies who will announce [their resignations] in the next few days," he said.

Abdi Ahmed Dhuhulow, the Deputy Minister for Livestock Development, who also resigned, accused Gedi of failing to allow his cabinet colleagues "to do their work".

Meanwhile, President Abdulahi Yusuf Ahmed has issued an order to the country's security forces to confiscate any weapons found in streets of Baidao, the temporary seat of the TFG.

"The aim is to tighten the security of the city and its environs, so only the security forces will carry weapons," Dinari said.