Edith M. Lederer
United Nations, April 3, 2003 (AP) - Somalia has served as a transit point for international terrorists but its local militant groups appear to be less of a terrorist threat than feared, a U.N. panel said in a new report.
The panel pointed to recent findings that material and explosives used in the November 2002 terrorist bombing in the Kenyan port of Mombassa were shipped through Somalia - and that terrorists were "easily able to transit through Somali territory on the way to their intended target."
Foreign terrorists apparently also used Somalia to get themselves and their weapons across the border into Kenya and then to Tanzania to bomb the U.S. embassies in both countries in 1998, they said.
"The continuing lawlessness in Somalia, particularly where it prevails in the coastal areas, is a threat not only to Somalis but also to the international community," the panel said in a 62-page report released this week.
However, fears after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that Somalia could become a haven for international terrorists because of its lack of an effective central government "at present...appear unfounded," the panel said.
The report focused on violations of a 1992 U.N. arms embargo in the lawless Horn of Africa nation, but also addressed possible links to terrorism. Somalia's U.N. ambassador scheduled a press conference Friday to respond to the findings.
Bulgaria's U.N. Ambassador Stefan Tavrov, who chairs the U.N. committee monitoring the sanctions against Somalia, said Wednesday the report was the first attempt to identify issues related to the flow of arms into the country.
It cited the ready availability of weapons and ammunition at arms markets in Somalia as well as supplies sent to warlords and groups in the country from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and Yemen.
Somalia has been without an effective government since opposition leaders united to oust dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. The opposition leaders then fought with each other, turning the nation of 7 million into battling fiefdoms ruled by clan-based factions.
A transitional government elected at a peace conference in neighboring Djibouti in August 2000 has little influence outside the capital, Mogadishu, and faces opposition from a number of faction leaders.
After Sept. 11, President Bush put the country's largest company, Al-Barakat, and a Somali Islamic group, al-Ittihad al-Islami, on a list of groups believed to have links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network.
Israeli and U.S. officials suspect al-Ittihad was involved in the Nov. 28 attack on a hotel frequented by Israelis in Mombassa that killed 11 Kenyans and three Israelis. But the panel said it found no such link.
"While the panel has found ample evidence that al-Ittihad al-Islami continues to operate in Somalia, it appears to have few formal links with al-Qaida, and has a largely local agenda, which includes unification with other Somali-majority areas in neighboring states," the report said.
The panel said al-Ittihad abandoned its camps after Sept. 11 and "is now seeking power by political and economic means." The group is also reportedly exercising considerable influence within courts using Islamic Shariah law, it said.
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