Islamists deny planning attacks
2006-11-03 13:30
Mogadishu - Somalia's increasingly powerful Islamic militia on Friday denied the United States claims that the fundamentalist group was planning suicide attacks in East Africa, and said America was trying to frame the group for violence in this volatile region.
The US embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, issued a travel warning on Thursday telling citizens "to remain vigilant and to use extreme caution" in public places, saying Somali extremists were threatening suicide attacks at landmarks within Kenya and Ethiopia.
According to spokesperson Sheik Abdirahim Ali Mudey, the Council of Islamic Courts, which controlled Somalia's capital and much of the south, said "the US statement is totally baseless".
Mudey said the "Americans want to accuse us of being responsible for explosions".
Somalia 'has no effective govt'
He said he had "received information" that the CIA, along with intelligence agents in Kenya and Ethiopia, were planting bombs in Nairobi and the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa as part of a plan to frame the fundamentalist group.
Somalia had not had an effective government since 1991, when warlords overthrew a dictator and then turned on one another. But, the Islamic courts seized control of the capital, Mogadishu, in June and now controlled much of the country.
Earlier this week, peace talks collapsed between the militants and Somalia's United Nations-backed interim government, which controlled only the western city of Baidoa.
Somali government officials didn't immediately return calls seeking comment. The US government had charged that some in the Somali militant group had ties to al-Qaeda.
Experts also warned that Somalia could become a proxy battleground for neighbouring Eritrea and Ethiopia.
8 000 Ethiopian troops in Somalia
Eritrea, which broke away from Ethiopia in a 1961-91 civil war and fought a 1998-2000 border war with its rival, supported the Islamic militia. Ethiopia backed the interim government.
A confidential UN report said 6 000 to 8 000 Ethiopian troops were in Somalia or along the border.
It also said 2 000 soldiers from Eritrea were inside Somalia. Eritrea denied having any troops there, while Ethiopia insisted it had sent only a few hundred advisers.
Kenya, and Tanzania just to its south, already had been victims of al-Qaeda terrorism, with the bombings at the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998 and attacks on a hotel and an Israeli airliner in Kenya in 2002.
The attacks emanated from Somalia, where the growing militant movement had prompted concerns that the chaotic nation could become fertile ground for Osama bin Laden's terror organisation.
Two leaders of the Islamic courts appeared on US and UN lists of people known to have ties to al-Qaeda, although both men had repeatedly denied the allegations.
- AP