Somalia A 'Potential Safe Haven For Al-Qaeda'

Mogadishu, Somalia, August 12, 2006 (AP) - Thousands of supporters of Somalia's new fundamentalist rulers held a rally in the capital, Mogadishu, after prayers, calling for a holy war against enemies of Islam in the Middle East, United States and around the world.

More than 2   000 people shouted "God is great!" and "Down with the enemies of Islam, wherever they are!"

Many at the Friday gathering lashed out at Israel for its role in the deadly month-long conflict with Lebanon.

"Look at what's happening in the Middle East and the whole world is silent, and when Somalia was in the anarchy still the world was silent," said Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, a leader of the Islamic militia that has seized Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia in recent months.

The US accuses the group of harboring al-Qaeda leaders responsible for deadly bombings at the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

Friday's protest came as a conflict-monitoring group said Somalia is "the largest potential safe haven for al-Qaeda in Africa" -- a dire warning in the wake of the foiled terror plot in London to blow up US-bound planes. Experts say the plot carried the hallmarks of al-Qaeda.

The report by the Belgium-based International Crisis Group said that unless the conflict in Somalia is contained, it threatens to draw in "a widening array of state actors, foreign jihadi Islamists and even al-Qaeda"

Somalia has not had an effective central government since warlords toppled long-time dictator Mohamed Siyad Barre in 1991 and then turned on each other, plunging the country into anarchy.

A transitional government was established two years ago with the support of the United Nations, but it has failed to assert power outside its base in Baidoa, 255km from Mogadishu.

At Friday's demonstration in the capital, protesters said they were enraged at "enemies of Islam" in the Middle East, the US and neighboring Ethiopia -- which is Somalia's long-time enemy. But the Somali government has asked for Ethiopia's support, and witnesses have reported seeing Ethiopian troops arrive in Baidoa to protect the government.

"It is compulsory to join the holy war," Yusuf Ali Siyad, a member of the Islamic group, told the Associated Press.

A similar protest was held in neighboring Kenya, drawing about 300 people to Nairobi's main mosque. The protesters, most of them young men, carried signs saying "Israel Stop Killing Our Brothers and Sisters" and "End America's Terrorism of Army Invasion in Iraq".

The conflict in Somalia has sent an average of 100 Somali refugees streaming into Kenyan refugee camps every day, according the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

"If the current rate of arrival continues, we can expect another 12   000 refugees by the end of the year," the UNHCR said in a statement. The Dadaab camps in north-east Kenya already have about 134   000 refugees, most of them Somalis.

Source: AP, Aug 12, 2006

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