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Allies Step Up Somalia Watch U.S. Aims to Keep Al Qaeda at Bay By Thomas E. Ricks Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, January 4, 2002; Page A01 With members of the al Qaeda terrorist network on the run from Afghanistan and other former safe havens, the United States is stepping up military activities in and around Somalia to prevent the lawless African country from becoming a new base for the group, Bush administration officials said yesterday. In recent days, the United States and leading NATO allies have increased military reconnaissance flights and other surveillance activities in Somalia, the officials said. Also, the Pentagon will soon have in the Arabian Sea three Marine Expeditionary Units, each with about 1,200 troops. One of those units is scheduled to set sail for the United States soon, but there will be a one-week period during the middle of January when all three will be available for operations in the region, officials said. As the Pentagon sharpened its focus on Somalia, U.S. forces continued their efforts to track down al Qaeda and Taliban remnants in Afghanistan. Yesterday, U.S. warplanes launched a major airstrike -- the first in six days -- against a military compound three miles from the Pakistani border that Pentagon officials said was being used as a gathering spot by terrorist fighters trying to flee the country. [Details, Page A19.] Asked about the possibility of imminent military action in Somalia, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld declined to say what might happen. "It doesn't do any good at all for me to be speculating about different countries and what we might do next," he said. But Rumsfeld, at a Pentagon news conference, went on to speak in some detail about the presence of al Qaeda in Somalia. "They go in and out," he said. "We know there have been training camps there and that they have been active over the years and that they . . . go inactive when people get attentive to them." State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the administration has not decided what action, if any, it might take in Somalia. "We are working to ensure that Somalia doesn't become a haven for terrorists," he said. But he added: "No decisions on future targets, no recommendations on future targets have gone to the president." The 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, aboard the USS Bonhomme Richard and other ships, left the U.S. West Coast early last month and is scheduled to leave Singapore today and to steam westward into the Indian Ocean, officials said. The 15th MEU, which like the 13th is based in Camp Pendleton, Calif., is pulling out of Kandahar, Afghanistan, and is being replaced by a regiment of the Army's 101st Air Assault Division from Fort Campbell, Ky. A third MEU, the 26th, based in Camp Lejeune, N.C., is also in the Arabian Sea. Some experts speculated that the Marines might be used for large-scale raids in Somalia. But others dismissed that as unlikely, saying that the United States probably would rely more on low-profile intelligence actions. "I'm not convinced that Somalia will look like Afghanistan," said one Pentagon official. "It might be one of those things Rumsfeld describes as something you don't see." The increased attention being paid to Somalia is an indication of the success the United States is having globally in winning the cooperation of other nations in going after members of al Qaeda, the terrorist network led by Osama bin Laden and blamed by the Bush administration for the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington. Suspected members of the group are finding that former havens such as Yemen, Egypt and Sudan are now cracking down on them. About 500 suspected terrorists have been detained or arrested outside the United States, U.S. officials have said. "I think they are very disrupted," Rumsfeld said. "It takes them longer and it's harder and more dangerous for them to raise money than it was three months ago." Rumsfeld added that al Qaeda's ability to communicate, to move and to train new members have also been constrained. But bin Laden and many other senior leaders of al Qaeda remain at large, having slipped away from U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Administration officials have repeatedly expressed concern that bin Laden may try to move through Pakistan to another country. Even as he was overseeing planning for the war, Rumsfeld privately expressed concern that al Qaeda would be routed in Afghanistan, only to seek to establish a new base in another country. About two weeks after the September terrorist attacks, the defense secretary told his senior military commanders -- the regional commanders in chief known as CINCs -- to prepare to catch al Qaeda members as they flee Afghanistan for other countries. The new U.S. military operation in Somalia appears to be the implementation of the plans prepared in response to that order. In that sense, it is intended more to prevent additional al Qaeda members from getting into Somalia than to act against those already there. "I think it is preemptive," said one U.S. official. "It's also to make the point that the war isn't limited to Afghanistan." The major U.S. aerial reconnaissance activities have been conducted by Navy P-3 planes flying out of a base in Oman, at the southeastern corner of the Arabian peninsula. They are mainly taking photographs of suspected al Qaeda sites. Such images are helpful in planning attacks and, because they are extremely detailed, can also be used for tracking changes at a site, such as the number of people training there or the number of vehicles arriving and departing each day. In addition, British and French aircraft are flying over Somalia. The major purpose of the flights, which were first reported in yesterday's Washington Times, is to "establish a baseline so we can be sensitive to anomalies in the future," a Defense Department official said. The number of daily flights doubled to about four or five last week, but Somalia has been a particular focus of the U.S. military and intelligence establishments since Sept. 11, in part because there were reports that month that bin Laden had moved there or made plans to do so. U.S. intelligence officials at first found the reports credible but later decided that they were incorrect. Somalia has been considered a center of al Qaeda activities since 1993, when bin Laden sent several top lieutenants to provide assistance to Mohamed Farah Aideed, a local warlord. In a firefight in October of that year, Aideed's forces killed 18 U.S. Army troops who were serving in a U.N. peacekeeping force. That incident led to the U.S. withdrawal from the country. After the U.S. withdrawal, al Qaeda members continued to use Somalia as a regional base of operations. According to U.S. intelligence officials and court records, Somalia was the site of some of the preparations for the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and in Nairobi. Staff writer David B. Ottaway contributed to this report. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send your FREE holiday greetings online! http://greetings.yahoo.com ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9WB2D Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
