SomaliaÂ’s prime minister has asked clan elders in Mogadishu to surrender Al-Qaeda suspects who are believed to be sheltering in the city after his forces, with Ethiopian military support, drove out Islamic militias which controlled the capital. Washington has accused the Union of Islamic Courts, which threatened to overrun the government, of trying to turn the country into a safe haven for terrorists and demanded the handover of three suspects who it believes were behind the bombing of its embassies in east Africa.
Ali Mohamed Gedi, whose government has so far had little support in the capital, has been locked in negotiations with tribal leaders about how to take control. A source close to the government said that the prime minister had asked the elders to take over administration of the city in return for information about three men suspected of masterminding attacks on American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.
“The message they forwarded was that there are certain people wanted by the international community and by us and if you can tell us their whereabouts we would appreciate it, and that would be a sign of collaboration,” he said.
The request was made in a private meeting with leaders of the Habar Gidir clan. Their Ayr sub-clan is believed to be sheltering Fazul Abdullah Mohamed, from the Comoros Islands, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a Kenyan, and Abu Taha al-Sudan, from Sudan.
The men were named in June by Jendayi Frazer, the US assistant secretary of state for African affairs, as the three most wanted terrorist suspects America was seeking in connection with simultaneous car bombs at the US embassies in Nairobi and Tanzania, which killed 257 people in 1998. Washington believes the same cell was behind an attack four years later on a hotel near the Kenyan coastal resort of Mombasa, which left 13 people dead, and an unsuccessful attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner.
After the attack, the men slipped away through KenyaÂ’s island archipelago to SomaliaÂ’s lawless capital. With no immigration department, police force or central government since 1991, they could readily disappear into MogadishuÂ’s warren of bullet-riddled buildings. The anarchic capital, one of the most dangerous places on earth, was off-limits to foreign security agents.