Hargeysa, Somaliland, April 15, 2006 – The leader of the military wing of Al-Itihad Al-Islami, a Somali militant group linked to Al-Qaeda, paid a clandestine visit to Somaliland on last month.

The visitor, who was only identified by his code name Hassan Yare, passed through Hargeysa after returning from Saudi Arabia. He was accompanied by Ahmed Nur Jim’aale, the former boss of the remittances and telecommunication company “Barakat”.

According to intelligence experts, Hassan Yare who is from the Ogaden headed the “explosives” department of Al-Itihad’s military division before he was promoted to assume the overall military leadership of the organization several years ago.

He was also responsible for liaisoning with the Ogaden National Liberation Front which has been militarily active in some parts of Ethiopia’s Somali inhabited autonomous region.

Jim’aale served as Al-Itihad’s chief financial officer before becoming in the early 1990s the executive director of Barakat whose world-wide offices were closed down following US government accusations that the company had links with Al-Qaeda. His responsibilities also included facilitation of the arrival of Arab Jihadists to fight in Ethiopia’s Somali region.

Though the arrival of Hassan Yare coincided with the March 26, 2006 attempt by a group convicted terrorists to escape from Hargeysa’s central prison, however it wasn’t yet clear whether the Al-Itihad military leader was involved in the unsuccessful jail break operation.

The two men reportedly cut short their stay in Somaliland after their presence became known to both the Somaliland and Ethiopian intelligence.