Alison Auld
HALIFAX, Fri, April 11, 2003 (CP) - Ships patrolling the Persian Gulf for terrorists could be diverted to waters off the coast of Somalia to help suppress a feared regrouping of terrorist cells in the region, says the Canadian leader of a multinational task force.
Commodore Roger Girouard said some of the vessels he commands under the task force might be shifted to the horn of Africa if the threat diminishes in the gulf and rises in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia.
"We might take a relook at where the emphasis is," Girouard said in an interview from HMCS Iroquois in the Gulf of Oman.
"We've been here some time and I'm not sure there's an awful lot more flow of al-Qaida to be expected. So would a protection force for the Strait of Hormuz be appropriate? Yes, but if we're going to continue the hunt for al-Qaida and some of their agents, there might be other places that bear some scrutiny."
Girouard has been leading Task Force 151 since he arrived in the region in January. The group of aircraft and vessels from Greece, France, Canada, the United States and New Zealand have been scanning the area around the strait for possible terrorist operatives.
The coalition has intercepted a handful of suspects, but there are growing concerns any base of operations for Osama bin Laden's network and other groups could be shifting to Africa and away from Afghanistan.
The United Nations has said Somalia has been used as a key transit point for arms smuggling, citing the 2002 terrorist bombing in the Kenyan port of Mombassa in which arms were shipped through its border.
Foreign terrorists apparently also used the lawless country 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, a UN panel said recently. It cited the ready availability of weapons and ammunition at arms markets in Somalia, as well as supplies sent to Somali warlords from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and Yemen.
Girouard said the issue is being discussed, but is in the very early stages and is being weighed against other considerations. His ships might be called on to provide escort to vessels transporting humanitarian aid to Iraq. They could also be asked to provide support to Canadian ground forces due to go into Afghanistan this summer, he said.
"There are a number of options that over the coming weeks the department and eventually the government will consider," he said in a lengthy interview on a satellite phone. "We've laid out our perspective of the lay of the land."
A spokesman at the Department of National Defense said he wasn't aware of any possible deployment to the African region, but Maj. Richard Saint-Louis at central command in Tampa, Fla., said Canadian ships would not be deployed to the area.
Girouard's work as part of Operation Apollo has come under harsh diplomatic scrutiny in recent days as American and Canadians officials dispute limitations that restrict him from any involvement in the war in Iraq.
In a private address to Ottawa dignitaries on Wednesday, Paul Cellucci, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, ridiculed the federal government's policy on the handling of any Iraqis apprehended by the task force.
Cellucci reportedly said it was "incomprehensible" that Canadians would not immediately hand over captured Iraqis to American officials. The comments followed earlier remarks he made on his administration's disappointment over Canada's refusal to join the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
"It seems like I've lit off the ambassador," Girouard said. "To me it's very much a tempest in a teapot because the folks I'm working with, we know what lines exist in terms what we're allowed to do."
Defense Minister John McCallum said he had not heard from Cellucci on the matter, but said Girouard is under orders to contact Ottawa for instructions if he does come across Iraqi officials.
"There are two distinct missions and Canada's in the mission against terrorism, not the mission against Iraq," he said in Ottawa.
The back-and-forth jousting has caused senior ministers to fend off the growing perception that bilateral relations have fallen further into the deep-freeze.
"I want to affirm that we have not abandoned our American ally either in feeling or in deed," Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham said in a speech in Cleveland on Friday. "Canada is a more useful partner when we take complementary, rather than identical courses in world affairs."
Prime Minister Jean Chretien also said Friday he is willing to send RCMP officers to help restore order in Iraq, but has not yet been asked to do so.
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