SEVERAL thousand fundamentalist Muslims linked to al-Qa'eda are being trained as
terrorists at bases in Somalia, diplomatic and intelligence sources said yesterday.
Al-Itihad al-Islamiya, a radical Islamic
group that owns banks and other businesses, joined forces with al-Qa'eda in 1992 after its
leaders met Osama bin Laden in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, where bin Laden was living.
President Bush froze al-Itihad's assets
this week to try to choke financial support for bin Laden.
Hussein Ali, a former member of al-Itihad,
says that Afghan and Pakistani members of al-Qa'eda recruited Somalis. "They show how
to make explosives and how to prepare bomb blasts and how to use guns," he said.
"They instruct to hate the Americans
because they are the enemies of Islam and they say that if we kill an American we will
have great rewards in the next life."
Like Afghanistan, Somalia has been largely
ignored by American diplomats since the debacle of the American-led mission there in the
early Nineties.
It is unclear how much America already knew
or chose to ignore because of its policy of diplomatic neglect.
Hussein, who said he had survived several
attempts to kill him, claimed that he still had friends in Al-Itihaad who passed
information to him.
United Nations officials confirmed that
Afghan and Pakistani agents of al-Qa'eda were known to be working with al-Itihad.
Intelligence sources estimate that between
3,000 and 5,000 members of the al-Qa'eda and al-Itihad partnership are operating there,
with 50,000 to 60,000 supporters and reservists.
Military sources say that much of the
southern tip of Somalia, a country divided into a patchwork of warring fiefdoms since
civil war broke out a decade ago, is in the hands of al-Itihad.
United Nations officials say that
components of bombs which exploded at the American embassies in Nairobi
and Dar-es-Salaam in 1998, killing 224 people, could have been made at a camp near Ras
Kamboni on Somalia's southern coast.
They said that bin Laden visited the camp
shortly after the bombings, presumably to offer congratulations.
An American missionary from Memphis,
Tennessee, crossed the Kenyan border into the area last year on an apparent conversion
mission. She was murdered after only four hours.
UN officials have been unable to enter.
They were told by al-Itihad: "We never want to see a white face or a non-Muslim here
again."
The UN says there are also active camps in
the northern mountains near Las Anod, as well as el-Wak in the west. Bases in the western
Gedo region and at Galkaiyo, farther north, were detroyed by Ethiopian forces in 1996
after al-Itihad was blamed for a bomb attack on a hotel in the capital, Addis Ababa.
Little is known of al-Itihad, which was put
on America's list of terrorist organisations only this week. The leader of its military
wing is Maj Hassan Dahir Uweis, who is believed to have orchestrated the shooting down of
American helicopters in Somalia in 1993, killing 18 servicemen.
Al-Itihad is one of very few groups that
has managed to achieve cross-clan support in ethnically divided Somalia, apparently
persuading its followers that only radical Islam can unite the country.
It has also recruited from the business
community and it owns Barakat (Arabic for holiness), one of the biggest conglomerates in
Somalia, which, according to intelligence sources, is known to fund bin Laden.
Besides banks, it runs foreign exchange
bureaux, telecommunications companies, internet firms, building companies and travel
agencies and operates in a host of countries, including the United States and Britain.
Barakat banks allow Somalis living abroad to transfer an estimated $500 million a year
within seconds to relatives at home. Even the United Nations uses it to pay its Somali
staff.
As the evidence grows, speculation is
mounting in east Africa that Somalia could face American strikes as part of the war on
terrorism. It is unclear how much support al-Itihaad has in the transitional government of
President Abdiqassim Salad Hassan, which last year formed Somalia's first central administration in nearly a decade.
Al-Itihaad certainly supports Salad. It has
posts in his government and runs its headquarters openly in the capital, Mogadishu.
But analysts say that the president, who
controls only a fraction of the country, has merely tried to be as inclusive as possible
and would probably support American efforts to strike at the terrorists.