Moscow Rossiyskaya Gazeta (in Russian) – Article by Nikolay Paklin: ”Who’s Next? The Pentagon Believes That It is Somalia and Another Eight States ‘Terrorizing Other Nations’”
[FBIS Translated Text] The other day the French paper Le Figaro published a map with a striking caption: “The Next Potential Targets of the United States.” It singled out nine states. Two of them are described as “states in which there are terrorist organizations. “They are Somalia and Yemen. The Philippines and Indonesia are marked as countries in which there are Islamic uprisings. Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Syria, and Sudan are colored black on the map. They are assigned to the category of “rogue states.” “George Bush is preparing new wars,” France’s biggest-selling newspaper believes. “The U.S. President has himself expanded in two areas the sphere of application of the ‘Bush doctrine’ regarding the fight against terrorism,” Le Figaro writes. “According to him, all those who arm, fund, or shelter terrorists know from this September that they will have to answer for it. The White House has added to them another category of states which are developing weapons of mass destruction in order to terrorize other nations.”
Back at the start of the military operation in Afghanistan the U.S. President gave Iraq a “grave warning.”
But recently there have been more and more signs that the next country in which the United States intends to combat terrorism will be Somalia. “Somalia is one of six or eight states involved in terrorist activities,” U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said. Yemen is in danger of sharing Somalia’s fate. “The noose is tightening around Somalia and Yemen,” the authoritative Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera notes.
The United States has particular scores to settle with these countries. The Pentagon has been interested in Somalia for along time, due to its strategic position in the Horn of Africa. Back in 1991 the Americans leased an airfield near the port of Berbera, in northern Somalia. This port commands [perekryvayet] the sea route from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean. The landing strip at the Berbera airfield is regarded as the longest in Africa. At the time the United States paid $40 million for the lease. No wonder the Americans got involved in the internecine conflict in the country in 1993 and dispatched their armed peacekeepers to arrest rebel general Aidid.
But a U.S. special forces detachment was ambushed. Eighteen rangers were killed. The body of one of them was dragged by a mob through the streets of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, in front of the television cameras. Having failed to achieve its aim the United States was forced to withdraw its military contingent from Somalia. U.S. generals are now claiming that this unfortunate ambush was organized by gunmen from the very same Islamic terrorist organization, Al-Qa’ida, which the United States is fighting against in Afghanistan.
According to information from U.S. special services, Al-Qa’ida is firmly established in Somalia. In the south of the country it has set up training camps and supply bases. It was allegedly its gunmen who prepared and carried out the bombing of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
Soon after the tragic events of 11 September the United States accused Somali Islamic organization Al-Itihad of terrorism and the major Somali bank, Al-Barakat, of funding Bin Ladin’s terrorists.
The United States has already dispatched its ships to Somalia’s shores to intercept fishing vessels which surviving Al-Qa’ida terrorists might be using to get from Afghanistan to Somalia. Five U.S. officers have just been to southern Somalia. They busied themselves ascertaining the location of terrorist camps and compiling maps. They were helped by local rebels who are at war with the Somali national “transitional government.” Walter Kansteiner, U.S. assistant secretary of state for Africa, admitted that “Somalia is under close observation.”
A group of U.S. military people has already appeared in Berbera. It has the task of coordinating the arrival of the first U.S. military subunits, which will take control of the site where larger units will land and the road leading to neighboring Ethiopia.
The United States is involving its NATO allies in the groundwork for the operation in Somalia. There are Bundeswehr servicemen together with the Americans in the port of Berbera. According to available information, Berlin is prepared to provide 3,500 soldiers for the operation in Somalia, including chemical and bacteriological warfare specialists. In Djibouti, which adjoins Somalia in the north, Americans and British have flown into the French air force base. The Pentagon intends to use this tiny state — a former French colony — as a strongpoint and supply base for the planned military operation in Somalia.
The United States is particularly banking on Italy. Somalia is its former colony. And the Italians still have extensive ties there. Italian naval intelligence officers have also visited Djibouti. At the request of the United States Italy intends to send four ships to the Somalia area. The San Marco airborne battalion and Tuscania carabinieri paratroop regiment are also busy preparing to go.
Europe is extremely wary of U.S. plans to transfer the antiterrorist campaign involving the use of heavy armaments from Afghanistan to other countries. The EU conference in Brussels deliberately included in the draft resolution a point on the need to obtain the prior consent of the international community — in effect, the United Nations — to the conduct of operations of this kind. But, through the efforts of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, with the backing of Germany, Italy, Spain, and Holland, this point was struck from the final document.
The Somali History Archive 