DAR AL HARB / ISLAM: SECRET HELP TO AL-QAIDA IN SOMALIA

Secret aid for al-Qa'ida in Somalia
Jon Swain, Johannesburg
February 19, 2007

MIDDLE Eastern countries secretly armed and supported suspected al-Qa'ida recruits in the failed state of Somalia in a direct challenge to Western interests in east Africa, a UN report has revealed.

Hundreds of Islamist fighters were flown, with Eritrean assistance, from Somalia to Syria and Libya for military training. Others were taken to Lebanon to fight with Hezbollah, the report to the UN security council says.

UN investigators detail the military aid given to the Islamists by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Arab states purportedly friendly to the West. Iran supplied 125 shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, 80 of which arrived by sea in dhows and the rest by air.

A clandestine operation to smuggle the fighters out of Somalia began in July last year.

Evgueny Zakharov, the owner of Aerolift, an airline with a fleet of ageing Antonov and Ilyushin transport aircraft based in Johannesburg but registered in the British Virgin Islands, said in an interview: "We transported lots of men in uniform -- Arab men with masks.

"They were disciplined men and although none of them had rank badges there were obviously people in charge. They got on the aircraft as if they had done it many times before."

Mr Zakharov said his involvement began after he was approached by a General Tambi of the Eritrean People's Defence Forces. Eritrea, a neighbour of Somalia in the volatile Horn of Africa, was a major supporter of the Islamists.

General Tambi offered to buy Mr Zakharov's Ilyushin 76 transport aircraft carrying the Kazakhstan registration number UN76496 for $US1.5million ($1.9million), even though the normal price for an aircraft of that vintage and condition is just $US1million. Mr Zakharov went ahead, despite unusual contract conditions that stipulated secrecy. He insisted the contract should specify that the new owners were not to use the aircraft to make arms flights.

However, he said last week that the Ilyushin made three sanctions-busting arms flights to Somalia from the Eritrean port of Massawa, bringing out the masked men on the return legs.

Mr Zakharov's revelations came as Western security services continued their investigation into foreigners suspected of fighting on behalf of Islamic forces in Somalia and of joining al-Qa'ida last year. Among them are British, US and French Muslims.

Significant numbers of foreigners went to Somalia, Western intelligence officials have found, after the radical Islamic Courts Council movement seized power from a weak UN-backed government, established links with al-Qa'ida and allowed Somalia to be used as an al-Qa'ida terrorist training ground, like Afghanistan under Taliban rule. However, in December, invading Ethiopian troops took the capital, Mogadishu, from the ICC and restored the internationally recognised Government, routing the Islamists and scattering the foreigners and al-Qa'ida fighters.

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Pertinent Links:

1) Secret aid for al-Qa'ida in Somalia