MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — A leader of Somalia's Islamist insurgency
threatened to attack America during a speech broadcast Monday.
"We tell the American President Barack Obama to embrace Islam before
we come to his country," said Fuad Mohamed "Shongole" Qalaf.
Al-Shabab has not yet launched an attack outside Africa but Western
intelligence has long been worried because the group targeted young
Somali-Americans for recruitment. About 20 have traveled to Somalia
for training and at least three were used as suicide bombers inside
Somalia.
Al-Shabab holds most of southern and central Somalia and has the
support of hundreds of foreign fighters, mostly radicalized East
Africans. It seeks to overthrow the weak U.N.-backed government, which
is protected by 8,000 Ugandan and Burundian African Union
peacekeepers.
The al-Shabab militia launched coordinated suicide attacks in Uganda
in July that killed 76 people. It has also announced its allegiance to
al-Qaida and is believed to be harboring a mastermind of the twin 1998
bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224
people.
The radio message was recorded in the town of Afgoye, near the Somali
capital, during a meeting of Shongole and Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys,
formerly the leader of insurgent group Hizbul Islam. The two insurgent
groups had clashed several times previously but announced a merger
last week. Aweys said his group will fight under al-Shabab's command.
"We have united for the sake of our ideology and we are going to
redouble our efforts to remove the government and the African Union
from the country," said Aweys on Monday.
In an unrelated development, the Somali information minister said the
new Cabinet had approved the use of a private security contractor to
train forces in the capital of Mogadishu and the program would start
"soon."
Saracen International would train forces for VIP protection, said
Abdulkareem Jama. He said he did not know exactly when training would
start, what the men's duties would include or how many men would be
trained but he said the program included the renovation of a hospital
and government buildings.
Somali officials are frequently killed by insurgents, both in single
assassinations and en masse in suicide bombings and attacks. The
Somali ambassador in Kenya previously said that up to 1,000 men could
be trained in the capital for an anti-piracy force and 300 for a
presidential guard.
Saracen is already training 1,000 men for an anti-piracy force in the
semiautonomous northern region of Puntland.
The program has been criticized by U.S. officials who say it is
unclear who is funding it, what its objectives are and whether it
breaks a U.N. arms embargo.
Jama said the Somali cabinet had discussed those issues and were
satisfied the embargo was not being broken but he did not say who was
funding the program.
"There is a need for training," he said. "There was an effort to slow
down the project (in Mogadishu) because of those concerns."
The arid Horn of Africa nation has not had a functioning government
since a socialist dictatorship collapsed in 1991. Its position on the
Horn of Africa means pirates can use its long coastline to capture
shipping.
Analysts fear that al-Qaida linked insurgents are also gaining ground
across the Gulf of Aden in the unstable nation of Yemen. If Yemen
fell, that would mean failed states on either side of the shipping
route leading into the strategically vital Suez Canal, the route taken
by a substantial portion of the world's oil shipments.
Associated Press writer Katharine Houreld in Nairobi, Kenya
contributed to this report.
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