Africa aims to combat terrorism
2005-09-22 11:36
Khartoum - Sudan, listed by the United States as a terror sponsor, sat down with its neighbours to discuss how to work together to fight terrorism in their unstable region.
US observers were at the high-profile counter-terrorism conference that opened in Khartoum on Wednesday, and US officials have increasingly turned their attention to Africa, saying terrorists could be seeking havens or staging grounds on a continent with porous borders and weak governments.
Sudanese security chief general Salah Abdullah, who rarely appears in public, said during the nationally televised opening of the conference that his country was now united, leaving war behind, and determined to help bring peace to the region.
Sudan has found it difficult to shake a past that includes harbouring al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and allegedly helping Muslim extremists in a failed plot to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
'This is war'
Sudanese leaders have repeatedly asked to be taken off the US list of countries sponsoring terrorism. The US has called Sudan an important partner in the global war on terror, but not yet struck it from the list, on which it first appeared in 1993.
The counter-terrorism conference drew security chiefs from Burundi, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Madagascar, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Observers from Algeria, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and Yemen also attended.
Kenya, twice hit by al-Qaeda, sent its top security and intelligence official, brig. Wilson Boinet.
"This is a war," Boinet, who, like his Sudanese counterpart rarely appears in public, said during the opening session. "It is shadowy and has no front line and it has no trenches and knows no boundaries or religion, but we are all called upon to fight it."
Expanded counter-terrorism in Africa
An al-Qaeda cell attacked the US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1998, killing 224 people, including 12 Americans. The al-Qaeda controller for those attacks, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, escaped Kenya to Somalia following the bombings, and in 2002 organised the car bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, after which he again reportedly went to lawless Somalia.
Chad, one of the countries attending the Khartoum conference, joined eight other African countries in US-led counter-terrorism exercises earlier this year.
The exercises marked the start of an expanded US counter-terrorism effort in Africa, encompassing Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Senegal, Mali, Niger, Mauritania, Chad and Nigeria. An earlier US effort involved just Mali, Mauritania, Chad and Niger.
In his opening remarks at the Khartoum conference, Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir condemned terrorism, but said the world must agree on what constitutes terrorism before it can be effectively fought.
- AP