MIDDLE EASTERN countries secretly armed and supported suspected
Al-Qaeda recruits in the failed state of Somalia in a direct challenge
to western interests in east Africa, according to a United Nations
report.
Hundreds of Islamist fighters were flown, with Eritrean assistance,
from Somalia to Syria and Libya for military training. Others
were taken to Lebanon to fight with Hezbollah, the report to the
UN security council has revealed.
UN investigators also detailed military aid given to the Islamists
by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Arab states friendly to the West. Iran
also supplied 125 shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, 80 of
which arrived by sea in dhows and the rest by air.
A clandestine operation to smuggle the fighters out of Somalia
began in July last year.
In an interview, Evgueny Zakharov, the owner of Aerolift, an
airline with a fleet of ageing Antonov and Ilyushin transport
aircraft, based in Johannesburg but registered in the British
Virgin Islands, said: “We transported lots of men in uniform
— Arabian men with masks.
“They were disciplined men and although none of them had
rank badges there were obviously people in charge. They got on
the aircraft as if they had done it many times before.”
Zakharov said his involvement began after he was approached by
a General Tambi of the Eritrean People’s Defence Forces.
Eritrea, a neighbour of Somalia in the volatile Horn of Africa,
was a major supporter of the Islamists.
Tambi offered to buy Zakharov’s Ilyushin 76 transport aircraft
carrying the Kazakhstan registration number UN 76496 for $1.5m
(£770,000), even though the normal price for an aircraft
of that vintage and condition is just $1m.
Zakharov went ahead despite the unusual contract conditions that
stipulated secrecy. He insisted the contract should specify that
the new owners were not to use the aircraft to make arms flights.
However, he said last week that the Ilyushin made three sanctions-busting
arms flights to Somalia from the Eritrean port of Massawa, bringing
out the masked men on the return legs. “I do not know who
they were but you can draw your own conclusions,” he said.
Zakharov’s revelations came as western security services
continued their investigation into foreigners suspected of fighting
on behalf of Islamic forces in Somalia and of joining Al-Qaeda
last year. Among them are British, American and French Muslims.
Significant numbers of foreigners went to Somalia, western intelligence
officials have found, after the radical Islamic Courts Union (ICU)
movement seized power from a weak UNbacked government, established
links with Al-Qaeda and allowed Somalia to be used as an Al-Qaeda
terrorist training ground like Afghanistan under Taliban rule.
In December, invading Ethiopian troops took the capital Mogadishu
from the ICU and restored the internationally recognised government,
routing the Islamists and scattering the foreigners and Al-Qaeda
fighters.
But violence continues to plague the weak and fractured country
and there are fears of an Islamist resurgence unless African Union
peacekeepers are rapidly deployed.
Last week four British Muslims who had been in Somalia under
the radical militia and then crossed the border into Kenya were
briefly held under the Terrorism Act on their return to Britain.
An American who was also arrested in Kenya and then deported
was charged in Texas with teaming up with Al-Qaeda. He told FBI
officers who interrogated him that he had spent time with an Al-Qaeda
bomb maker in Somalia being trained in assembly techniques.
The UN report also described Iranian attempts to obtain Somali
uranium. Somalia is reported to have 6,600 tons of recoverable
uranium but the mines have never been exploited because of poor
security.
In addition, Libya provided $1m to finance future training missions
and pay salaries. Surface-to-air missiles supplied by Iran are
of the type Al-Qaeda used to try to bring down an Israeli charter
flight over Kenya in 2002. The missiles are still at large.
Zakharov believes that one of the reasons the Eritreans wanted
to use the Ilyushin in the clandestine operations was because
the freighter’s registration began with the letters UN and
therefore might have been mistaken for a United Nations aircraft.
When Zakharov discovered the Eritreans’ real use of the
plane was for arms shipments and for flying the masked men from
Somalia, he cancelled the contract. Zakharov said he first grew
suspicious when he found that the seven-man crew were each being
paid £2,500 bonuses for every flight.
Contacted last week, Tambi denied all knowledge of the deal.
However, The Sunday Times has a copy of the contract signed in
Moscow and Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, between Aerolift and
Eriko Enterprise of Asmara on July 21.
The first sanctions-busting arms flight landed at Mogadishu on
July 26 and was followed by three arms shipments — a total
of some 140 tons — over the next three days.
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