ISLAMIC COURTS UNION: Bush Strategy Stirs Tempest In Somalia

U.S. funding spurs militia

BY HANNAH ALLAM

A Somali protests Friday in Mogadishu at a rally that drew about 10,000 who opposed a proposed peacekeeping mission.

MOGADISHU, Somalia, June 19, 2006 -- In early March, nine of Mogadishu's most prominent leaders secretly flew to neighboring Djibouti and pleaded with U.S. military officials there to stop funding the warlords who were devastating the city. Backing the warlords, they said, would end up strengthening an Islamist militia with a shadowy radical wing.

The Americans ignored their warnings, three of the Somalis who attended the meeting said in separate interviews, and the leaders' fears came to life this month when the Islamic Courts Union militia defeated the warlords and took control of the Somali capital.

Now, the Bush administration's Somalia strategy is in tatters, and the Islamist militia is poised to extend its control to all of southern Somalia, where intelligence officials believe at least two senior Al Qaeda operatives are hiding.

There are no U.S. officials in Somalia, and U.S. officials in Washington wouldn't confirm or deny that the United States provided aid to the warlords. A spokesman for the U.S. counterterrorism task force based at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti wouldn't comment.

But two U.S. intelligence officials, speaking anonymously because they aren't authorized to talk to the news media, said CIA financial support for the warlords was approved by the Bush administration and coordinated by the agency's station chief in Nairobi, Kenya. On Saturday, news agencies, quoting residents in Mogadishu, reported that two warlords fled to a U.S. naval vessel off the Somali coast.

Islamic Courts expands

With Mogadishu now under their control, Islamic Courts forces have continued their offensive. They control Jowhar, 55 miles north of Mogadishu, and are preparing for an assault on Beledweyne, 190 miles north, near the Ethiopian border.

Analysts are concerned that the Islamic Courts may move on Baidoa, the town 150 miles from the capital where an almost powerless but internationally recognized transitional government has been housed for nearly two years.

Some of the warlords are surrendering their weapons to the Islamist militias, providing the militias with new weapons -- most of them bought with U.S. money, Somalis charge.

"The Islamic Courts had nothing in the beginning," said Ali Iman Sharmarke, a member of the delegation that traveled to Djibouti in March and a managing partner of the HornAfric media corporation in Mogadishu. "They only got their power through fighting. Now, they've captured $15 million in weapons from the warlords."

Takeover was avoidable

Somali leaders interviewed in Mogadishu in recent days said the Islamist takeover was avoidable at the time of the Djibouti meeting. They said they warned the Americans that the warlords, who'd banded together in February to form the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism, were wildly unpopular and would be defeated by the Islamists.

They said they tried to persuade the Americans to focus instead on reconstruction efforts and support for the interim government in Baidoa.

"The money was creating the war. If they stopped the money, the warlords would have been weakened," said Abdelkadir Mohamed Nur, a Somali-American businessman who led the delegation to Djibouti. "It could have been peaceful. It could have been a power-sharing situation. Instead, it's a failure.

"We told the Americans, 'If you contribute money this way, you create terrorists and extremists because people think you are fighting their religion.' "

The warlord alliance began as a proxy force for U.S. intelligence and Special Forces teams hunting Al Qaeda suspects, but many Somalis said the leaders also used it to settle scores with rival clans and brutalize residents at roadblocks throughout the city.

The alliance did capture at least two high-level fugitives and disrupted plans for operations elsewhere, according to a report by the International Crisis Group, an independent group based in Brussels, Belgium, that tracks international conflicts.

War against Islam

Ordinary Somalis were outraged at what they perceived as a war against Islam, cementing public support for the then-fledgling Islamic Courts Union.

Residents in Mogadishu said the money flowing into the coffers of militia leaders was no secret.

They report mysterious planes arrived at landing strips operated by the warlords.

Islamic Courts Union militia members drink juice Saturday in Balad, north of the Somali capital, Mogadishu. Somali officials say U.S. leaders ignored their warnings against funding warlords and the militia arose in response to what some radicals perceived to be a war against Islam.   (Photos by KAREL PRINSLOO/Associated Press)

Source: KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS

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