Why Mysterious Spy Planes Are Scouring Somaliland Landscape And Coastline?
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By Jamal Madar
Lately, we have been hearing fascinating UFO-like stories about purported secret spy planes frequently scouring the length and breadth of Somaliland’s parched landscape and coastline. More intriguingly, however, the Nairobi-based International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) which controls Somaliland and Somalia’s air space said ‘they were not aware of any planes that were flying over Somaliland’, according to Somaliland’s Minister of Aviation, Ali Mohammed Waran Adde. But these planes were widely reported in the local media and witnessed by many people. They flew over villages, farms, major townships and cities throughout much of Somaliland territory.
Shortly before Ethiopia invaded Somalia in December 2006, “Residents [ Mogadishu] felt that they were under surveillance. And they were. Drones hovered above the city all night. War, it seemed, was in the offing,” writes the celebrated Somali author, Nurrudin Farah in the New York Times on 27 th May 2007.
In Somaliland, some believe that these mysterious planes flew from the CJTF-HOA base (Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa) in neighboring Djibouti and they could probably be US military ‘spy planes that use state-of-the-art equipment designed to suck up electronic communications, including telephone calls, e-mails, ship-to-shore relays, faxes and satellite transmissions’. Basically, the surveillance plane’s main task is to eavesdrop on targeted areas, process the findings and send the information to the military commanders at nearest base- in this case perhaps the CJTF-HOA base in Djibouti. Others say they are UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) predators.
Whatever the people might think or say, the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) is flying classified missions from an airfield at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti using the Predator, a pilotless drone equipped with Hellfire missiles, according to Western officers.
The deaths in Yemen of six suspected al-Qaeda terrorists, including a key planner in the bloody attack on the American destroyer USS Cole in October 2000, were the work of a missile fired by an unmanned US aircraft. This predator was flown by a pilot on the ground in French-garrisoned Djibouti and overseen by commanders in Saudi Arabia.
However, many Somalilanders wonder why the US would spy on a poverty-stricken, breakaway republic with virtually no military capability and unrecognized by the international community. Needless to say, the US officials can have unfettered access to any intelligence information at Somaliland government’s disposal, if they so wish. Furthermore, Somaliland has been the victim of multiple attacks by terrorists during the period from December 2002 to March 2004 in which several innocent western expatriates were brutally murdered by criminals using the name of Islam to justify their crimes. The Somaliland security authorities captured most of the terrorists behind these operations and put them behind bars.
According to the Somaliland Times, Somaliland security authorities shared the information obtained from the arrested terrorist suspects with officers from the American counter terrorism unit.
For their part, American agents tracked down Essa [one of the suspected terrorists] to a hideout in Mogadishu. He was wounded and then abducted to an American base in Djibouti where he was interrogated. The Americans handed him [Essa] over to Somaliland through the Ethiopians. Such was the level of co-operation between the US and Somaliland government.
Nonetheless, both Somaliland opposition and government supporters’ quarters are buzzing with rumors and speculation. Many believe that the purported US spy planes are not only engaged in harmless surveillance and reconnaissance missions but that the pentagon might be planning to bomb selected targets in Somaliland in collusion with Ethiopia.
While the CIA may not have much of a way to directly gather useful intelligence on the ground, the Ethiopian intelligence operatives infiltrated the Somaliland government at every level.
The Ethiopian Intelligence service has been feeding “exaggerated intelligence” to the US, which led to the occupation of Somalia in December 2006 by Ethiopian troops. The fact of the matter, however, is that there are no terror cells or training camps in Somaliland. Any attempt to bomb any targets in Somaliland will almost definitely kill innocent people and plunge the entire region into chaos.
An expert knowledgeable about the security situation in Somalia, put it this way: ‘The new game in Somalia is to call your enemy a terrorist in the hope that America will destroy him for you.’ writes Professor Asgede Hagos of Delaware State University.
Even though Somaliland considers itself as an independent and sovereign state, nonetheless, both the US and Ethiopia and the world at large still recognize Somaliland as part of Somalia proper.
What makes the activity of these purported US spy planes even more disturbing and troubling is Somaliland government’s failure to defend its air space, although there is no descent air defense to speak of. The question on everyone’s lip is however: why there was no attempt by the Somaliland army, at least to scare off these planes, which as we know repeatedly violated the territorial airspace of Somaliland? Evidently “no shots were fired in the direction of the airplanes”, according to the Somaliland Times. Why government officials failed to give reasonable explanation to the local press to allay public fears? Why president Rayale maintains mute silence until now about this matter? These and other legitimate questions still remain unanswered.
Could this mean that Rayale knew about these reconnaissances and surveillance missions in advance and kept his minister of aviation deliberately in the dark?
Is it possible that president Rayale, in order to disrupt the upcoming presidential election, gave misleading information about possible Al-Qaeda presence in Somaliland to his friend, prime minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, who in turn, passed the information hastily onto the American military commanders for possible bombing of non-existent Al-Qaeda targets in Somaliland? Why the sudden increase of reconnaissance and surveillance missions over Somaliland?
As Somaliland’s tumultuous and competitive presidential election fast approaches, Rayale and his henchmen are beginning to freak out over the prospect of losing the election and some suspect that he may be calling for desperate measures to plunge the country into turmoil so that he [Rayale] could be given an extension of term of office by the two Houses of Parliament, one of which is pliant to the president.
In the event of political turmoil, which makes the situation not conducive to holding elections in the country, the president could rule the country by decree by asking for an extension of term of office. Whether or not this strategy will work is a moot point.
According to a high-placed source in the government, Rayale struck a secret deal with Meles Zenawi who agreed to come to his aid militarily in the event of Rayale’s defeat in the forthcoming Somaliland presidential election. In the past, the Ethiopian Foreign Office tried to intervene in Somaliland’s presidential election in April 2003 when there was a potential dispute over election results that almost threatened the peace and stability of the country. Rayale dubiously won the election by a razor-thin margin of 88 votes against Ahmed Mohamoud Sillanyo, the leader of the leading opposition party- KULMIYE.
The Ethiopian officials were later told that the people of Somaliland had centuries old traditional mechanism where conflicts could be resolved properly and amicably and thus there was no need for their intervention.
Since then, a clandestine alliance or rather close personal relationship between Meles Zenawi and Dahir Rayale Kahin has developed.
Rayale appeared on the Ethiopian TV and applauded Zenawi’s infamous invasion of Somalia in the Christmas of 2006 much to the disgust of the Somaliland people whereas both KULMIYE and UCID- the opposition parties- expressed concern about Ethiopia’s military actions which resulted in the death of over 1,400 people and led to the displacement of staggering 350,000 people from their homes.
Rayale wants to be seen as being friendly to the Ethiopian government while behind-the-scenes his henchmen, who shuttle back and forth between Addis Ababa and Hargeisa, portray the opposition as potential adversaries that could jeopardize Ethiopia’s interests in Somaliland.
Ethiopia plays a double-edged game over Somaliland. On one hand, it vigorously supports Abdillahi Yusuf’s TFG (Transitional Federal Government), which is archenemy of Somaliland and on the other, it maintains what is perceived to be a friendly relationship with Somaliland. TFG prime minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, Ethiopia’s closest friend, also falsely accused Somaliland that al-Qaeda was behind the recent confrontation in Dhahar between Somaliland and Majeerteeniya (Puntland). By the same token, he said that the conflict between two clans- Majeerteen and Marehan-in Kismayo was instigated by Al-Qaeda.
The overwhelming majority of Somalilanders are indebted to the Ethiopians for their accommodation in 1988 when they were bombed out of their homes by Siyad Barre’s government troops and fled across the border into Ethiopia as refugees. They want to maintain good diplomatic relations with Ethiopia but one based on mutual respect and non-interference in each other’s internal affairs.
There is a growing concern among the Somaliland people that Ethiopia’s US-financed army might intervene in Somaliland with Washington’s blessing, as has been the case in Somalia recently. Some dread that the Ethiopian army might march into Somaliland in the form of fighting terror or under the pretext of maintaining security and stability in the event of a likely presidential election dispute or other political turmoil.
In the final analysis, the US would be well advised to listen to the flawless advice given by James Phillips, Heritage's Middle East expert. Phillips “cautions against relying too heavily on Ethiopian interpretations of events, since Addis Ababa has its own agenda where Somalia [include Somaliland] is concerned and could give the United States misleading reports to gain increased U.S. aid and further Ethiopian aims in the process”.
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