DEHAI NEWS MAILING LIST ARCHIVE: [dehai-news] Theeastafrican.co.ke: UN shows Kenya links to both sides in Somalia

[dehai-news] Theeastafrican.co.ke: UN shows Kenya links to both sides in Somalia

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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Sun Apr 04 2010 - 15:44:38 EDT

UN shows Kenya links to both sides in Somalia

By KEVIN J KELLEY

Sunday, April 04 2010 at 00:00

Kenya serves as "a major base" for Islamist groups battling Somalia's
Transitional Federal Government, the United Nations says in a recent report
that also details the Kenyan government's training of TFG forces - in
apparent violation of a UN embargo.

Kenyan nationals account for about half of all foreigners fighting in
Somalia under the banner of the Al Shabaab insurgency force, the report
says.

Many of these fighters are recruited through a support network in Nairobi
consisting of "wealthy clerics-cum-businessmen, linked to a small number of
religious centres notorious for their links to radicalism," the UN
Monitoring Group on Somalia states in its March 10 report.

Leaders of Al Shabaab and Hizbul Islam, the other main insurgent group in
Somalia, "travel with relative freedom to and from Nairobi, where they raise
funds, engage in recruitment and obtain treatment for wounded fighters," the
Monitoring Group finds.

Some African and European diplomats based in Nairobi meanwhile engage in
visa fraud that enables the smuggling of illegal migrants into Europe and
other destinations for fees of about $12,000 for a man and $15,000 for a
woman, the UN says.

The ambassador of an African country to Kenya reportedly plays a key role in
this visa fraud scheme, the report adds.

The Nairobi embassy of another country in the Horn of Africa is said to
funnel cash on a monthly basis to insurgent forces inside Somalia. "An
estimated $1.6 million of such funding may have passed through Kenya alone
in 2008," the report says.

The Monitoring Group criticises the Kenyan government for its failure to
co-operate with UN investigations of breaches of the arms embargo
established by the Security Council in 1992.

"One notable exception," the report adds, "was the Kenya Police Criminal
Investigations Division, which provided valuable assistance to the
Monitoring Group."

The report also cites Kenyan authorities' denials of "sanctions-busting"
activities that the UN charges they have carried out or abetted.

The Monitoring Group points in particular to military training that Kenya
conducted last year on behalf of the TFG for some 2,500 youths recruited
from inside Somalia and from northeastern Kenya, including the Dadaab
refugee camps.

Kenyan officials have acknowledged training TFG police officers, but
"initially denied any other type of training," the Monitoring Group notes.

In the absence of authorisation from the United Nations, such training
initiatives are in violation of the arms embargo.

The Monitoring Group further confirms that Kenya's training of TFG recruits
involved numerous "irregularities," including recruitment of children and
Kenyan citizens as well as "false promises of financial remuneration."

The Mosque connection

In detailing connections between Somalis in Nairobi and insurgent fighters
in Somalia, the Monitoring Group names several mosques in the Kenyan
capital.

"The networks organised around these institutions have long provided both
ideological leadership and a resource base for Somali militants," the UN
report states.

It describes a 31-year-old cleric "believed by the government of Kenya to
have obtained Kenyan nationality under false pretences," as a key leader of
one such mosque. The cleric issued a fatwa in February 2009 calling for
attacks on the TFG and Amisom troops, the report says.

It identifies another leader of the same mosque, "who travels freely between
Nairobi and Mogadishu."

He regularly engages in online forums with Al Shabaab recruiters and
trainers in Mogadishu, the report says.