U.S. Accused of Backing Warlords in Somalia

The U.S. is facing growing criticism that it is secretly aiding one side behind the deadly clashes raging in Mogadishu, thwarting Somalia’s attempts to restore peace and order.

Gun battles on the streets of Somalia’s capital have killed nearly 140 people over the last two weeks. Eighty died in two fights in February and March, started when an alliance of Mogadishu warlords linked to the U.S. began battling Islamic leaders attempting to assert their authority in the capital.

Somalia plunged into anarchy in 1991 after the fall of the Mohamed Siad Barre regime. After the deaths of 18 American servicemen in Mogadishu in the 1993 “Black Hawk Down” fiasco, the U.S. withdrew its troops from the Horn of Africa country and has shied away from a hands-on diplomatic role.

Now leaders of a transitional government are blaming the U.S. for sparking what has become the deadliest outbreak of violence in years. Somalian government officials accuse U.S. intelligence agencies of secretly funding the Mogadishu warlords as part of anti-terrorism efforts.

“The warlords in Mogadishu are telling us that they were encouraged by the U.S. to fight the Islamists,” said Asha Ahmed Abdalla, a parliament member representing the north.

Transitional President Abdullahi Yusuf and transitional Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi are calling upon the U.S. to stop supporting the warlords and instead work with the official government, which was chosen by a transitional parliament meeting in Kenya in 2004.

“The U.S. strategy on terror is to use its own channels,” Gedi said. “But it’s only through the [transitional] government that we can address the issue of terrorism.”

John Prendergast, senior advisor at the International Crisis Group, an independent policy organization based in Washington, said the U.S. policy was focused too heavily on covert military intervention, rather than attempting to restore Somalia’s economic and political infrastructure.

“This is Cold War-style diplomacy at its worst,” Prendergast said. “It just ends up throwing gasoline on the fire.”

U.S. officials refused to confirm or deny any role in supporting the warlords, but reaffirmed the Bush administration’s commitment to forging ties with “responsible” partners willing to assist in combating terrorism in Somalia.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Wednesday that the U.S. was “working across a spectrum of Somalis to make sure that Somalia isn’t a safe haven for terrorism. We have a real interest in counter-terrorism efforts in Somalia.”

The warlords, calling themselves the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and CounterTerrorism, deny receiving U.S. assistance.

United Nations officials said last week that they were looking into reports that an unnamed country had violated the U.N. arms embargo on Somalia by providing support to the warlord alliance. John R. Bolton, the American ambassador to the U.N., denied that the U.S. had violated the embargo.

Analysts say U.S. support for select warlords in Somalia has been an open secret since 2002. “They don’t provide weapons, but they provide the cash, which is easier anyway,” Prendergast said.

After Sept. 11, the Bush administration began to reexamine policy on Somalia, where lawlessness, uncontrolled borders and proximity to the Middle East had created conditions for terrorist activity.

U.S. officials believe that Al Qaeda-linked terrorists, including suspects in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, were being sheltered in Somalia as recently as a year ago.

In addition to establishing a large U.S. military base in nearby Djibouti in 2002 and earmarking $100 million for anti-terrorism campaigns in East Africa, the U.S. counter-terrorism campaign has sought help from Somalian warlords in hunting down suspected militants.

In 2003, warlord Mohammed Dheere, who is now part of the warlord alliance fighting in Mogadishu, helped capture terrorism suspect Suleiman Ahmed Hemed Salim and handed him over to the U.S., according to a report by the International Crisis Group.

American intelligence agencies have not uncovered evidence of a significant presence of Al Qaeda terrorists in Somalia and have reached out to moderate Islamic groups in the country, U.S. officials and analysts say.

But in recent months, hard-line Islamist groups in Somalia have been gaining power and popularity, establishing Islamic courts and raising their anti-Western rhetoric. They also are accused of being responsible for assassinations of several officials and peace advocates.

U.S. and U.N. officials say the Islamic courts have armed themselves and are leading the confrontations against the warlords with the help of money and soldiers from abroad. This week, the State Department warned of the possible presence of “foreign fighters” in Somalia.

The U.N. said last fall that it believed one of the senior leaders of the Islamic courts, Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, had received mines, rifles and grenades from an unnamed nearby country. U.S. officials say Aweys, a co-founder of the Islamic group Itihaad al Islamiya, has links to Al Qaeda.