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UN Report Says 10 Nations Violating Arms Embargo

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Associated Press
November 15, 2006


Ten nations from across the Middle East and Africa have been providing guns, money, training and other supplies to Somalia's weak government and a rival Islamic movement in violation of an international arms embargo, a U.N. commission report obtained Wednesday said.

But experts and diplomats expressed deep skepticism about the report's allegation that 720 Somali mercenaries fought alongside Hezbollah in its battle with Israel in July. There were also doubts about the panel's findings that Iran shipped arms to the Islamic militants in return for access to uranium mines in the hometown of the top Islamic leader.

The U.N. panel, charged with monitoring the arms embargo on Somalia, found that Ethiopia, Eritrea, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Iran, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Uganda had all supported armed groups inside Somalia. Most of the nations denied the allegations in letters to the panel. "At the time of the writing of the present report, there were two Iranians in Dhusa Mareb engaged in matters linked to uranium in exchange for arms," said the report, which has not been released to the public. Iran also supplied an aircraft to fly 40 Somalis wounded in Lebanon back home to Somalia, it said.

Hezbollah's senior political officer in south Lebanon rejected the report as "baseless." "It's an absurd report that does not warrant a comment," Sheik Hassan Ezzeddine told The Associated Press. Hezbollah is an exclusively Lebanese Shiite organization that does not recruit foreigners. The group is also fervently Shiite Muslim, which theologically clashes with the Sunni form of Islam practiced in Somalia. There have also been no other reports of any Africans fighting in Lebanon.

Somalia's Islamic movement only had about 2,000 trained militiamen when the fighting in Lebanon took place in July, so it seems unlikely it would send out so many men when it was still consolidating across southern Somalia. Ted Dagne, a Somalia expert at the Congressional Research Service in Washington, said he questioned some of the report's contents. "It would be hard not to notice a black man fighting in Lebanon," he said, adding that he also doubted significant Iranian involvement within Somalia. "The Saudis are probably more active than the Iranians."

A diplomat who has closely followed developments in Somalia also found errors in the report's details on certain arms shipments. Speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the issues, he questioned the ties to Iran and nuclear issues. "There is a lot misinformation flowing around Somalia right now, so we must be very skeptical" the diplomat said. But according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, between 5,000 and 10,000 tons of low-grade uranium can be easily mined in Dhusa Mareb, home to Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, the leader of the Islamic movement. Aweys' Council of Islamic Courts has competed directly with the internationally backed transitional government, which so far has failed to assert itself outside of one town. Some of the courts' leaders, including Aweys, have been linked by the United States and United Nations to Islamic terrorist groups.

Both the government, which is backed by Ethiopia, and the courts, which are backed by Eritrea, have been preparing for an all-out war, the U.N. report concluded. Mediators from East Africa and the Arab League have been working to reach some kind of peace deal, but so far without success. The Islamic militia "is currently the most powerful force in Somalia and the single most immediate threat" to the government, the report said. "And, while (the government) has received large quantities of arms and military materiel, (the Islamic militia) has been the recipient of larger quantities and more diverse and sophisticated types of arms." The authors of the report called on the international community to begin closely monitoring Somalia's coastline and land borders to intercept suspected arms shipments. The U.N. Security Council resolution that imposed the embargo does not authorize any methods to enforce it.

The panel also recommended against the deployment of a peacekeeping force, insisting it would only exacerbate tensions. The African Union has authorized the deployment of 8,000 Ugandan and Sudanese peacekeepers to protect the government and stabilize Somalia, but the Islamic group vehemently opposes that and the U.N. arms embargo stymies such a move. The U.N. report noted that none of the panel's recommendations in past years have been implemented.

The four-member panel, which includes a Belgian, an American, a Kenyan and a Colombian, based their report on their own investigations, interviews and material supplied by embassies in Nairobi. The experts expressed concern that in addition to the small arms routinely used in Somalia, the Islamic militants have obtained sophisticated surface-to-air missiles. Islamic officials recently test-fired the missiles outside of Mogadishu, according to witnesses. The panel also determined that Islamic officials have established a tax and fee collection system that will allow it to be self-financing in the future.


More Information on the Security Council
More Information on Somalia
More Information on Small Arms and Light Weapons
More Information on Peacekeeping

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FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.