NEWSWEEK: United States Giving Somali Warlords Cash, Equipment for Collecting Intel on Al Qaeda Members29 May 2006
For several years, Somalia's three major anti-Islamist warlords have received U.S. cash and some equipment to help with intelligence operations, according to several unofficial sources, including John Prendergast of the International Crisis Group. The warlords -- Mohamed Dheere, Bashir Raghe and Mohamed Qanyare -- have been asked to collect information on Muslim extremists tied to Al Qaeda, report Senior Editor Michael Hirsh and Foreign Editor Jeffrey Bartholet in the June 5 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, May 29). In one 2003 case, Dheere's men snatched an East African Qaeda cell member and turned him over. Philip Giraldi, a former CIA counterterrorism official who stays in touch with his ex-colleagues, says much of the money is funneled through the 1,800-man Joint Combined Task Force, based in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa. Other reports point to the CIA.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060528/NYSU004 )
The policy has provoked dissent at both the CIA and State Department, as well as in Europe. Some officials fear that America may be inadvertently creating a new jihadist haven in Somalia by generating an anti-U.S. backlash. Before the U.S. program began, the Islamists were only a small part of the population. "We know neither the rationale nor the scale of U.S. involvement; what we do see are consequences," says Marika Fahlen, Swedish ambassador and special envoy for the Horn of Africa: "The fighting is increasingly complex. Certain [Islamist] groups that were not so active in fighting before have become fighters." Giraldi is more blunt. "We're creating a new mess," he says. "Everything is tactical with this administration: catching a guy, catching a guy. I don't see that anyone has thought about the strategic issue of losing support."
Publicly, the administration will not admit to any policy of aiding warlords. But officials with the Red Cross and other aid groups in Mogadishu report seeing "many Americans with thick necks and short haircuts moving around, carrying big suitcases," says one aid official. And in recent months a diplomat critical of U.S. policy in Somalia, Michael Zorick, apparently was removed from his post in Nairobi after writing cables complaining about the strategy.
Meanwhile, at CIA stations in East Africa, some agency officials believe the U.S. is being "essentially defrauded," says a retired CIA station chief who recently visited there. "They think we should take a deep breath and settle down. We're throwing money at anybody who will say they're fighting terrorism."
(Read entire story at http://www.Newsweek.com. Click "Pressroom" for news releases.)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13008291/site/newsweek/
Source: prnewswire
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