US cracks down on alleged Somali terrorists
WASHINGTON: The Bush administration imposed financial sanctions Thursday on three alleged leaders of an extremist Islamic militia in Somalia.
The three targeted by the Treasury Department are suspected leaders of al-Shabaab, which the United States claims is linked to the al-Qaida terrorist group. Al-Shabaab has used intimidation and violence to undermine the Somali government and threaten activists working for peace, the Treasury alleged.
Any banks accounts or other financial assets belonging to the alleged leaders found in the United States must be frozen. Americans also are forbidden from conducting business transactions with them.
One of those targeted, Mukhtar Robow, is spokesman for al-Shabaab and a military commander with the group. His forces are accused of launching attacks last year on Somali government military bases as well as African Union peacekeeper in Mogadishu, the department said. He also is accused of playing a role in a deadly 2006 attack in Baidoa, Somalia.
Ahmed Abdi Aw-Mohamed, the alleged founder and leader of al-Shabaab, also was targeted. The department said he claims his group was responsible for assassination of a judge in Beledweyne, Somalia, last year. The department also alleges that he coordinated attacks on Ethiopian troops in Somalia last year.
Issa Osman Issa has served as a commander in al-Shabaab. The government said he led an assault last year against Mogadishu's Basil Hotel, often frequented by Ugandan peacekeepers.
"These terrorist commanders have had direct involvement in the kidnapping and cold-blooded murders of numerous Somali officials and civilians and they should be cut off form the world's financial system," said Adam Szubin, director of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.
The United States action comes as calls mount to the United Nations to send peacekeepers to Somalia, as piracy off the east African nation's sprawling coast has spiraled out of control. Well-organized bandits have attacked 95 ships this year in the Gulf of Aden and hijacked 39 of them.
Eight vessels have been seized in the last two weeks alone — including a massive Saudi supertanker loaded with $100 million worth of crude oil. Treasury said its action on Thursday was not related to the piracy problem.
Source: AP
Somali politicians fuel piracy, says African Union
MOGADISHU, Nov 20 (Reuters) - One of the world's biggest shipping firms said on Thursday it will no longer send part of its huge merchant fleet through the Suez Canal because of rampant piracy off Somalia's coast.
Danish shipper A.P. Moller-Maersk is routing some of its 50 oil tankers around the Cape of Good Hope instead.
Norway's Frontline, which ferries much of the Middle East's oil to world markets, said it was considering a similar step.
The move follows Saturday's spectacular capture by Somali pirates of a huge Saudi Arabian supertanker loaded with $100 million worth of oil, the biggest ship hijacking in history.
The scores of attacks in Somali waters this year have driven up insurance costs for shipping firms and the decision to divert cargo around South Africa risks pushing up prices for manufactured goods and commodities.
Forces from NATO, the European Union and elsewhere are trying to protect vessels on one of the world's busiest shipping routes, linking Europe to Asia. But many analysts say there can be no lasting end to the piracy without peace on land.
"It must be addressed by relevant authorities and the international community," said Soren Skou, Maersk partner and board member. "It is not a problem that A.P. Moller-Maersk or the shipping industry can solve alone."
The African Union's top diplomat, Jean Ping, said on Thursday the United Nations should send peacekeepers to Somalia urgently to stop the strife that is fuelling piracy and is aggravated by feuding politicians in the Horn of Africa nation.
Diplomats in the region say there is little hope of any speedy U.N. intervention in Somalia and NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said on Thursday the alliance would continue to patrol the seas but not get involved on land.
"Piracy is a very serious challenge and we have to fight it, but I think if you come to the part of these operations, for instance on land, then it is first and foremost up to the United Nations and not organisations like NATO to get deeply involved," he told reporters during a visit to Ghana.
Senior officials from Arab League states, meeting in Egypt, said African nations were unable to deal with the attacks and called for intervention by Europe, the United States and big Asian nations.
Since seizing the supertanker Sirius Star, pirates have hijacked at least three other ships, maritime officials say. The tanker's owners are in ransom talks but Britain said on Thursday that rewarding the gunmen could create more problems.
RIFT IN SOMALI POLITICS
The audacity of the attack underlined the extent of a crime wave that experts say has been fuelled by the Islamist insurgency onshore and multi-million-dollar ransoms.
"Part of the answer to the problem of piracy is going to be to try to engineer some progress inside of Somalia towards some more effective means of governance," Ambassador William Bellamy, director of the U.S. Defense Department's Africa Center for Strategic Studies, told reporters in Dakar.
"This is not an area where the United States is unilaterally going to seek to come up with solutions to a problem, regardless of how urgent that problem might be," he said.
There were also signs on Thursday of a worsening rift at the top of Somalia's Western-backed Transitional Federal Government, which regional leaders say is hindering the peace process.
Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein told a news conference in Mogadishu that he disagreed with a request by President Abdullahi Yusuf to shift peace talks to Libya from Djibouti, saying it would undermine the U.N.-brokered process.
In an interview with Reuters this week, Hussein said Yusuf was an "obstacle" to progress in Somalia.
Source: Reuters
Red Sea nations pledge to fight piracy, respect Somalia
CAIRO (AFP) — Arab Red Sea states meeting in Cairo on Thursday blamed the piracy off Somalia's coast on turmoil in that country and pledged cooperation to end the threat.
The meeting, co-hosted by Yemen and Egypt, was attended by delegates from Somalia's transitional government, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Djibouti and Jordan.
It came days after pirates hijacked a fully loaded Saudi oil tanker with a 100-million-dollar cargo and a crew of 25, demanding 25 million dollars (19.7 million euros) in ransom.
With three more ships captured since the Sirius Star was taken on Saturday, foreign ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki said before the meeting ended that Egypt would consider all possibilities in dealing with the crisis.
"The Egyptian national security establishment works intensively on all options, examines what measures could be taken in this regard and decides whether a diplomatic and political solution will be preferred."
"All options are open," Egypt's official MENA news agency quoted him as saying.
In a statement issued after the meeting, the delegates pledged to respect Somalia's sovereignty when battling piracy, but was short on specifics of how the countries intended to end it.
The delegates "expressed the anxiety of Arab states overlooking the Red Sea toward the growth of the phenomenon of piracy," the statement said.
"Piracy off the Somali coast is one of the consequences of the deterioration of the political, security and humanitarian situation in Somalia," it said.
The states will appoint military commissions to make recommendations on how to counter it, and "observe, pursue and confront any attempt by the pirates to enter the Red Sea, whether during acts of piracy or when fleeing confrontations."
Arab Red Sea states will support international counter-piracy operations, "so long as they conform to international law ... and respect the sovereignty of countries on their lands and in their waters," the statement added.
Last week, Yemen complained that the heavy deployment of multinational naval forces in the Gulf of Aden to combat piracy could pose a threat to Arab security.
"The intensive multinational military presence in the southern outlet of the Red Sea is worrying," Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Kurbi said.
Naval forces from the United States, Russia, Europe and elsewhere are patrolling the dangerous Gulf of Aden in an attempt to curb piracy attacks.
But the United States, which also has warships off Somalia, said a military approach was not the answer.
"You could have all the navies in the world having all their ships out there, you know, it's not going to ever solve this problem," Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said on Wednesday.
"It requires a holistic approach from the international community at sea, ashore, with governance, with economic development," he told reporters.
Egypt is particularly concerned about the piracy because of its reliance on on revenue from traffic using the Suez Canal between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.
Suez is Egypt's third-largest source of revenue after tourism and remittances from expatriate workers, and currently about 7.5 percent of global trade passes through the canal.
"The phenomenon is threatening navigation in the Red Sea, causing some vessels to take other routes," Zaki said.
Source: AFP
UN chief says Somali pirates also hurting homeland
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Somali pirates preying on international shipping are also damaging their homeland's battered economy, worsening the instability that opened the door to piracy and inroads by Islamic extremists, the U.N. chief warned Wednesday.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his quarterly report to the U.N. Security Council that the surge in piracy and armed robbery against ships has severely affected trade, worsened the humanitarian crisis and further weakened Somalia's transition government.
Inflation is "unbridled," especially in south-central Somalia where fuel costs soared almost 170 percent and prices for staple foods shot up more than 250 percent in the 12 months through August, Ban said.
He added that piracy has even hurt Somalia's once stable semiautonomous northern region of Puntland, whose currency has lost almost 80 percent of its value in the past year. Much of the piracy is happening off Puntland's coast.
The number of Somalis in need of humanitarian aid has increased 77 percent since January — from 1.8 million to 3.2 million, Ban said.
"If local communities are not empowered with the means to earn a sustainable livelihood in the wake of growing global and local challenges, Somalia will continue to be a potential breeding ground for frustrated extremists — a challenge to its stability, that of the region and the rest of the world," Ban warned.
Somalia has been without a functioning government since 1991, when clan warlords ousted longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on each other. The current government, formed in 2004 with the help of the U.N., has failed to protect citizens from violence or the country's poverty.
Islamic militants have waged an Iraq-style insurgency against Somali government troops and their Ethiopian allies for almost two years. Nearly daily mortar attacks and gunbattles in and around Mogadishu, the capital, have killed thousands of civilians.
Ban said U.N. experts continue to note violations of a U.N. arms embargo "in an environment of general lawlessness and lack of accountability and has also noted the role of piracy and armed robbery, kidnapping and ransom payments in financing violations by armed groups."
The Security Council is expected to approve a resolution Thursday imposing a travel ban and asset freeze on Somalis and Somali companies and organizations that violate the arms embargo, support acts threatening peace, and impede the delivery of humanitarian aid.
Ban applauded an Oct. 26 cease-fire agreement between the government and some Somali opposition parties, and he welcomed Ethiopia's stated readiness to withdraw its troops to support a truce.
But the agreement did not include any of the Islamic extremists who have denounced any talks with the government and who are behind much of the bloodshed in Mogadishu.
Al-Shabab, the military wing of Somalia's Islamic movement, which the State Department lists as a terrorist organization, has not participated in any talks, and Ban said there are indications it may steer "a more radical course."
Ban said Somalis working for the U.N. have been threatened and killed, and he warned of the "growing risk for United Nations staff being targeted in another major terrorist attack in Somalia or at the United Nations office premises in Nairobi," the capital of neighboring Kenya.
To help support the cease-fire agreement, Ban proposed that the current 3,450-strong African Union force be replaced by an international stabilization force with two multinational brigades, one of which could incorporate the AU troops. A brigade has about 3,000 soldiers.
Once there is "a credible, inclusive cease-fire," Ban said, a U.N. force with 22,500 soldiers could take over peacekeeping duties, accompanied by international police and civilians.
For now, the prospect of fighting ending seems very distant and delivering humanitarian aid has become extremely difficult: Ships carrying food and other goods need naval escorts and aid workers on the ground are being targeted, with 29 killed, 19 kidnapped and 10 still held captive, Ban said.
In his report, Ban also addressed the activities of the Somali pirates, saying they are estimated to have been paid between $25 million and $30 million in ransoms. He said about 65 merchant ships were hijacked off the coast of Somalia in the first 10 months of the year.
Source: AP
UN council targets those stirring Somalia trouble
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 20 (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council voted on Thursday to impose sanctions on anyone contributing to violence and instability in Somalia.
The resolution, adopted unanimously by the 15-nation council, is a framework that does not identify individuals or entities to be sanctioned. That will be decided later by a sanctions committee, diplomats said.
The British-drafted resolution calls for asset freezes and travel bans for anyone engaging in or supporting violence in Somalia, including individuals or companies that violate a 1992 U.N. arms embargo against the lawless Horn of Africa country.
The measure also targets anyone obstructing delivery of humanitarian assistance to Somalia.
Britain's U.N. Ambassador, John Sawers, told reporters the aim of the resolution was to stop the flow of arms into Somalia that are enabling an insurgency to continue.
Source: Reuters
