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Updated: December 2005
Because Somalia is a chaotic, poor, battle-weary Muslim country with no central government. As former Secretary of State Colin Powell has said, “terrorist activity might find some fertile ground there, and we don’t want that to happen.” Moreover, U.S. government officials say that Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network supported Somali radical Islamists, organized training camps in Somalia, and threatened American troops in Somalia who were there on a U.N. humanitarian mission in the early 1990s.
Conceivably. But they would have to get there first. And Somalia differs from Afghanistan in several key respects, experts say. First, while Somalia is about as big as Afghanistan, its landscape lacks Afghanistan's many natural hiding places. Second, Somalia is a more secular society where Taliban-style fundamentalism is unfamiliar. Third, Somalia’s pragmatic, secular local authorities are well aware of the multimillion-dollar U.S. bounty on the heads of al-Qaeda leaders.
But according to the State Department, it is Somalia’s “lack of functioning central government, protracted state of violent instability, long unguarded coastline, porous borders, and proximity to Arabian peninsula” which still make it a potential site for terrorists seeking refuge.
Investigating, planning, and talking tough—so far. U.S. Navy planes based in Oman have been flying reconnaissance missions over Somalia, and an international fleet is monitoring sea traffic. Meanwhile, U.S. military officials have been meeting with Somali clan leaders and officials in neighboring Ethiopia. And senior Bush administration officials often mention Somalia as a possible future stage in the war on terrorism.
Maybe. The Bush administration suspects that al-Qaeda has links to local radical Islamists in Somalia, but we don’t know how strong those links are. Ken Menkhaus, a Somalia specialist at Davidson College, writes, “there are at this time no terrorist bases and training camps in Somalia,” but with the post-September 11 attention, they may be lying low.
We don’t know. Somalia-watchers estimate there might be a few dozen al-Qaeda members or sympathizers in the country. The U.S.government, which has not released an estimate of the al-Qaeda membership there, is concerned that al-Qaeda operatives who fled Afghanistan will seek refuge in Somalia.
Yes. In 1992, President George H. W. Bush sent U.S. troops there to spearhead a U.N.-backed humanitarian mission to relieve famine. But the United States has kept its distance from Somalia since an October 1993 operation in pursuit of the Somali warlord Muhammad Farah Aidid left eighteen U.S. soldiers dead—an episode dramatized in the recent movie Black Hawk Down. The death toll and graphic TV images of an American soldier being dragged through the Somali capital, Mogadishu, led the Clinton administration to withdraw U.S. forces.
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