White House Dodges Somalia Questions‎‎

Washington DC, USA, May 18, 2006 – White House press secretary Tony Snow said yesterday the United States is working with "regional and international partners" to keep al-Qaida from establishing itself in northeastern Africa but would not say whether that included warlords in Somalia.

Snow cited Somalia's lack of a functioning government and said Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network uses such chaotic situations to establish terrorist training centers and bases. Somalia is just across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen and the Saudi Peninsula.

Two weeks ago, Somalia's transitional president said in Sweden that he believed the United States was bankrolling an alliance of warlords, the same people whose armed gangs are keeping Somalia ungovernable.

Asked yesterday whether the United States was working with warlords, Snow said he had to speak carefully.

"You've got instability in Somalia right now, and there is concern about the presence of foreign terrorists, particularly al-Qaida, within Somalia right now," he said.

"In an environment of instability, as we've seen in the past, al-Qaida may take root, and we want to make sure that al-Qaida does not in fact establish a beachhead in Somalia." Somalia has been without a real government since largely clan-based warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siyad Barre in 1991.

Source: Associated Press

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