US STATE DEPT. DAILY PRESS BRIEFING.....SOMALIA

Robert Wood  Acting Department Spokesman  Daily Press Briefing  April 2, 2009 INDEX: SOMALIA  Concerns about Al-Qaida Recruitment Activities / AQ Cause Is Human Destruction, Terror Requires Broad International Cooperation Full Text / TRANSCRIPT: 11:53 a.m. EDT  MR. WOOD: Good morning, everyone. I think it's just about still morning. Welcome to the briefing. I don't have anything, so –  Nina.  QUESTION: Different topic?  MR. WOOD: Sure.  QUESTION: Somalia and this al-Qaida-linked group al-Shabaab there seems to be this very broad recruitment effort of Somalia using the U.S., Australia, Canada to bring these youths into this group in Somalia. Is there's something that you've been discussing with officials in Australia and Canada, this concern?  MR. WOOD: Well, I'm not going to talk about specific discussions we may or may not have had, but it's certainly a very serious concern of ours about the recruitment activities of al-Qaida around the world. And you know --  QUESTION: Can you talk specifically about Somalia?  MR. WOOD: Somalia would be one of those areas that we're concerned about with regard to al-Qaida recruitment. But look, this is – this requires broad cooperation – the United States with other countries not only in, you know, the Horn of Africa, but outside of that region, to try to do what we can to prevent al-Qaida from being successful in recruiting young people to their cause. Their cause is one of just human destruction. It's a cause of terror. And law enforcement officials, governments, others have to join forces to come together to do what we can in that regard.  And so it's a big concern of ours. There's no question about it. And everybody in the world should be concerned about what al-Qaida is up to. We haven't defeated al-Qaida, but we're going to do everything in our power to do it. But we can't do it alone, and we need to work with other governments and other peoples to try to do that.  QUESTION: Yeah, on Nina's question, if there were conversations among these three governments, could you tell us? I mean --  MR. WOOD: I really don't want to get into those types of discussions, Lach, for obvious reasons, and you can understand why.  Okay, thank you all.  (The briefing was concluded at 12:24 p.m.)  Update your subscriptions, modify your password or e-mail address, or stop subscriptions at any time on your Subscriber Preferences Page. You will need to use your e-mail address to log in. If you have questions or problems with the subscription service, please contact support@govdelivery.com. This service is provided to you at no charge by U.S. Department of State . GovDelivery, Inc. sending on behalf of U.S. Department of State · 2210 C Street NW · Washington DC 20520 · 1-800-439-1420  Reply  Reply to all  Forward