DAR AL ISLAM - SOMALIA: THE SOMALI BRANCH OF THE MOSLEM JIHAD CLAIMS IT CAN SHOOT DOWN PLANES WITH SURFACE-TO-AIR MISSILES

Somali Islamists produce video, claim they can shoot down planes

NAIROBI, Kenya: A video showing a masked man firing a surface-to-air missile is circulating in Somalia, making a graphic — though so far unsubstantiated — claim that Islamic insurgents there are capable of shooting down planes.

The video, obtained by The Associated Press on Friday, is available on the streets of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, and is one of several released recently by the insurgents that echo the propaganda tactics of radical Middle Eastern groups. They may serve less to communicate to the world than to rally supporters at a time when the movement has been driven underground by Somalia's government and its Ethiopian military backers.

Somalia's Islamic militants have claimed in the past to have surface-to-air missiles, but never before shown them in a video.

A U.N. panel monitoring Somalia's arms embargo said in a November report that besides the small arms routinely used in Somalia, the Islamic militants have obtained surface-to-air missiles. The report did not specify the type or number the militants were believed to have.

"One should not be surprised that that equipment (surface-to-air missiles) is available" in Somalia, said Bethuel Kiplagat, a Kenyan diplomat who mediated Somalia's peace process between 2003 and 2004.

Al-Qaida leaders have in the past named the Horn of Africa nation as one of the battlefronts for Islamic militants, and Kiplagat said the group "has the capacity and capability of getting such arms."

The AP got the video showing the firing of a surface-to-air missile from a person associated with the Shabab, the militant wing of an Islamic group that ruled much of southern Somalia for six months last year. The group was driven from its strongholds in December but has vowed to launch an Iraq-style insurgency until Somalia is ruled by an Islamic theocracy.

The short video begins with Arabic text saying Islamic fighters were responsible for the March 23 downing of a cargo plane and that they attacked another plane March 9.

Somali government security officials declined to comment on the video or on investigations into what happened to either plane.

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