SOMALIA: 2005 COUNTRY REPORTS ON TERRORISM

UNCLAS NAIROBI 000037

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR AF/E, S/CT - RSHORE AND ESALAZAR
STATE PASS NCTC

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PTER ASEC SO KE
SUBJECT: SOMALIA: 2005 COUNTRY REPORTS ON TERRORISM


1. Post provides the text below as our submission to
subject report. Embassy Nairobi POC is Somalia Watcher
Michael Zorick, email: zorickmp@state.gov.


2. BEGIN TEXT:

Somalia

Somalias lack of a functioning central government,
protracted state of violent instability, long unguarded
coastline, porous borders, and proximity to the Arabian
Peninsula make it a potential location for international
terrorists seeking a transit or launching point to conduct
operations elsewhere. Regional efforts to bring about a
national reconciliation and establish peace and stability
in Somalia are ongoing. Although the ability of Somali
local and regional authorities to carry out
counterterrorism activities is constrained, some have taken
limited actions in this direction.

Somalia is awash with Islamist groups engaged in a broad
range of activities, making identification of terrorist
organizations an art rather than a science. Movements such
as Harakat al-Islah (al-Islah),Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa
(ASWJ),and Majma Ulimadda Islaamka ee Soomaaliya
(Majma') seek power by political rather than violent means and
pursue political action over missionary or charity work.
Missionary Islamists such as followers of the Tablighi sect
and the New Salafis" generally renounce explicit political
activism. Other Islamist organizations have become providers
of basic health, education, and commercial services, and are
perceived by some as pursuing a strategy to take political
power.

Members of the Somalia-based al-Ittihad al-Islami (AIAI)
have committed terrorist acts in the past, primarily in
Ethiopia. AIAI rose to prominence in the early 1990s with a
h a
goal of creating a pan-Somali Islamic state in the Horn of
Africa. In recent years, the existence of a coherent entity
operating as AIAI has become difficult to prove. At the
minimum, AIAI is now highly factionalized and diffuse, and
its membership is difficult to define. Some elements
associated with the former AIAI may continue to pose a
threat to countries and Western interests in the region.

Other shadowy groups have appeared in Somalia that are
suspected to have committed terrorist acts against Western
interests in the region, or to be capable of doing so. Very
little is known about movements such as al-Takfir wal-Hijra
("al-Takfir"),but the extremist ideology and the violent
character of takfiri groups elsewhere suggests that the
movement merits close monitoring.

Individuals and groups with past AIAI association and/or
current takfiri leanings may be targeting Western interests
in the region. Some among these are sympathetic to and
maintain ties with al-Qaida. However, individuals and
entities with former AIAI connections are also found in all
of the political, missionary, and humanitarian
organizations noted above.

END TEXT

BELLAMY