Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb Under Close
Surveillance
08/12/01 GERMANY/UNITED
STATES/OMAN/SOMALIA/YEMEN
THE INDIAN OCEAN NEWSLETTER N° 975
Before the month is out, the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb
will be placed under high surveillance by the warships of the anti-terrorist coalition
headed by the United States
Before the month is out, the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb will be
placed under high surveillance by the warships of the anti-terrorist coalition headed by
the United States, but the negotiations underway with certain bordering countries may yet
reserve surprises. The main role will go the German navy whose mission will be to monitor
communications between Somalia and Yemen, in order to prevent elements from the Al Qaida
organization of Osama bin Laden to find refuge in Somalia or to use a country in the
region as a backward base for new terrorist attempts. The information gathered by the
German fleet will serve the United States to determine the targets of future military
operations against eventual terrorist training camps in Somalia and Yemen.
Four German warships will control a zone ranging from
Riyadh in the north to Socotra, the Yemenite island off the northeastern point of Somalia.
Some 3,500 soldiers will be mobilized by Bonn, including some 100 KSK commandos who will
be training with British forces in Oman as well as an NBC nuclear, chemical, and
biological defense force. To secure the operation, the Germans and American headquarters
have started to negotiate a series of agreements with countries in the Horn of Africa.
A large German delegation under navy Captain Günter Fritz
landed in Djibouti on December 2 to evaluate the possibilities of stationing navy troops
and sheltering its ships in the Djiboutian harbor. Once Djibouti gives its green light and
if an agreement is reached on the price of the Germans' presence, cooperation with the
permanent French base in the small country is possible. Some of the training operations of
the German soldiers may also take place in Djibouti.
According to information obtained by The Indian Ocean
Newsletter, a small contingent of German marines already last month spent a few days in
Bossasso, in the autonomous administration of Puntland in northeastern Somalia, to
negotiate with the "provisional government" of Jama Ali Jama, with regards to
mooring, refueling, and supplying. Nothing was denied them and the contingent later sailed
for Aden.
And yet, Bossasso is a region where radical Islamic groups
are renown for their activities, and his supposed leniency towards this Islamic group has
led Jama Ali Jama to be systematically criticized by his Garowe-based rival, Colonel
Abdullahi Yussuf, who is close to the Ethiopian régime.
As for the United States, they are considering transferring
their communications monitoring headquarters from Nairobi, where it is currently based, to
Djibouti. An American exploratory mission arrived in Hargeisa in November for discussions
with Ibrahim Mohamed Egal, the president of the self-proclaimed state of Somaliland in
northwestern Somalia, concerning the use of the Russian military base of Berbera. They
reminded Egal how, already during the Gulf War of 1991, they put the base back in shape
with workers from the Philippines. At the time, Washington ended up not using it,
preferring to have its warplanes take off from the Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean.
The financial discussions with Egal did not turn out well,
the American representatives wanting to subtract the expenses of rebuilding the Berbera
base in 1991 from the price demanded by the Somaliland president, and they seem to have
left without a firm decision taken on either side.
But America made a gesture by asking Yemen to lift the
embargo on cattle exports from Somaliland, which took place in early December. As for
Egal, he cleared the Berbera base, asking private airlines not to use the airport and
switching Daalo Airlines to the Hargeisa airport.
_________________________________________________________________________________
07/12/01 ETHIOPIA
Red Carpet for Zenawi
in Moscow
THE INDIAN OCEAN NEWSLETTER N° 975
Prime minister Meles
Zenawi’s visit to Moscow this week enabled Ethiopia and Russia to resolve a major
bone of contention and to forge a diplomatic alliance that could have major strategic
implications.
A stumbling point in talks had been Ethiopia’s debt towards the former USSR which
Addis Ababa refused to pay on grounds that it stemmed largely from the supply of armaments
to the previous Ethiopian regime. But the dispute, which also concerned the ruble exchange
rate used to calculate the debt, was smoothed over by the terms proposed to Ethiopia by
the Paris Club countries, to which Russia now belongs.
In return for a sharp reduction of the debt, Zenawi promised to allow Russia to step up
certain projects in Ethiopia in such sectors as geological exploration, mining,
hydro-electricity and the refining of precious metals, according to Sergei Prikhodko,
diplomatic adviser to president Vladimir Putin.
Accompanied by several ministers – defense, foreign affairs, mines and energy and
the deputy agricultural minister –Zenawi declared he was keen on resuming military
ties with Russia. According to a Kremlin spokesman, Russian officials “sensed the
Ethiopian prime minister’s interest in military cooperation.”
In addition to talks already underway to upgrade Ethiopia’s air force and
anti-aircraft defenses, the new push for cooperation could result in Ethiopia procuring
six MI-35 combat helicopters, around 100 Igla surface-to-air missiles, 20 BTR-80 armored
troops carriers and ordnance worth a total of $150 million, according to a source in
Moscow.
Zenawi also signed a statement of friendship and partnership with Putin along with a
cooperation pact in education – it will enable Ethiopians to study in Russia and
Russian experts to teach in Ethiopia – and a consultation protocol between the
Ethiopian and Russian foreign ministries.
Elsewhere, the Ethiopian premier met with Russian businessmen and the Russian orthodox
patriarch Alexis II who asked him to convey his condolences to the families of Ethiopians
killed in the war against
Eritrea.______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
08/12/01 SOMALIA
The TNG's Shady Friends
THE INDIAN OCEAN NEWSLETTER N° 975
The contribution of Somalia's Transitional National Government (TNG) to
the anti-terrorist fight is rather limited for the time being. Of course, the TNG has
reassured Western diplomats by naming an anti-terrorist commission which has even
discovered a suspect, in the person of a Saudi national who was sent home to Saudi Arabia
a few weeks ago (ION 972). But the overall picture remains somewhat modest when the United
States seem convinced of the existence of fundamentalist networks in Somalia. Especially
when the TNG's inner circle includes people who had ties with Islamic organizations that
in this day and age are hardly considered recommendable. According to a Western diplomatic
source in Nairobi, such is the case of Abuker Adane, the owner of the Ramadan hotel whose
most prominent guests are none other than the members of the TNG. At the beginning of the
1990s, the Abgal trader was the representative in Mogadishu for the Islamic NGO Heyatul
Ylya, which today is on the blacklist of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).