Why Djibouti Is Vitally Important to the War on Terror
from AP

All along Kenya's Indian Ocean coast, al-Qaida members have woven themselves into the fabric of the region's Islamic society...

Using money to buy the allegiance of poor Muslims or passing themselves off as simple men looking for a quiet place to lead a devout life, the operatives have managed to build a formidable network throughout eastern Africa, U.S. officials told The Associated Press...

Hundreds of new al-Qaida members have been recruited, and most remain at large - including Fazul and Nabhan - despite stepped-up anti-terrorism efforts, said U.S. Marine Brig. Gen. Mastin Robeson, commander of the regional U.S.-led anti-terror task force based in nearby Djibouti...

Kenya. Yemen. Oman. Somalia. Djibouti is a seriously strategic place to be if you are trying to keep an eye on people in that region. Relatively stable and out of the way, the US benefits greatly from using their territory. If we were smart, we'd make it so Djibouti benefited from our presence. Welcome to the new paradigm, same as the old paradigm.

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January 7, 2004, Wednesday, BC cycle

SECTION: International News

LENGTH: 1201 words

HEADLINE: AP Enterprise: Al-Qaida operatives built East Africa network by
weaving into region's Islamic society

BYLINE: By MATTHEW ROSENBERG, Associated Press Writer

DATELINE: SIYU, Kenya

BODY:

When Fazul Abdullah Mohammed showed up in this little fishing village, there
was already a local soccer club - and its name was al-Qaida.

Not content to join a team others had started, the alleged mastermind of two
terrorist bombings in East Africa organized his own. Its name - Kabul, like the
capital of Afghanistan, where he allegedly trained with Osama bin Laden's real
al-Qaida organization.

All along Kenya's Indian Ocean coast, al-Qaida members have woven themselves
into the fabric of the region's Islamic society.

Using money to buy the allegiance of poor Muslims or passing themselves off
as simple men looking for a quiet place to lead a devout life, the operatives
have managed to build a formidable network throughout eastern Africa, U.S.
officials told The Associated Press.

Foreigners like Fazul, who is wanted by the United States for the car
bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi in August 1998 and a coastal hotel in
November 2002, settled in small towns and married local women.

Kenyans like Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, who is suspected of building the bomb
used in the hotel attack, sought out like-minded compatriots in the thousands of
mosques that dot the coast.

Hundreds of new al-Qaida members have been recruited, and most remain at
large - including Fazul and Nabhan - despite stepped-up anti-terrorism efforts,
said U.S. Marine Brig. Gen. Mastin Robeson, commander of the regional U.S.-led
anti-terror task force based in nearby Djibouti.

"We know for a fact of young al-Qaida operatives who've moved into areas, put
large sums of money on the table to marry local girls, purely and simply to
establish a bloodline and a financial obligation they seek to turn into a
guarantee of a safe place to live," he said.

In general, the Islamic terror network has not found legions of Muslims in
Kenya who share its religious views. For centuries, a relatively liberal and
mystical brand of Islam has dominated on the coast, not the rigid interpretation
of the Quran promoted by al-Qaida.

But al-Qaida operatives have found Muslims resentful in the East African
country, not just over calamities across the larger Islamic world, but also over
discrimination - real and perceived - at home.

In its drive to recruit, al-Qaida has exploited the resentment Kenyan Muslims
feel toward their government, which since independence in 1963 has been
dominated by Christians from inland tribes and has had strong ties to the United
States and Israel.

Al-Qaida "has corrupted some of our young people," said Sheik Ali Shee, a
prominent religious leader in the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa. "We were not
always like this ... we have a history of openness."

The coast's distinctive Arab flavor - the region has absorbed waves of
immigrants from Yemen and Oman over the centuries - has also made fitting in
easy for Arabs operatives, like Mustafa Mohamed Fadhil, an Egyptian who married
a Kenyan teenager and is wanted by the United States for his alleged role in the
embassy bombing.

Kenya's notoriously weak security forces, coupled with the historically poor
relations between the police and coastal Muslims, has allowed al-Qaida
operatives to work undetected, said one U.S. official, speaking on condition of
anonymity from Washington.

---

In Siyu, Fazul had been hiding in plain sight.

He was relatively unknown to U.S. and Kenyan officials before the 1998 car
bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, attacks
that killed 231 people, including 12 Americans.

But within months of that attack, Fazul was indicted by a U.S. court that
later convicted four other suspects.

Since the indictment, Fazul's face has been plastered on the walls of Kenyan
police stations; he also has a $25 million bounty on his head.

Yet in January 2001, using the alias "Abdul Karim," he showed up with a group
of itinerant preachers at Siyu, a village of mud and stone houses on Pate
Island, about 170 miles north of Mombasa. Fazul settled down with the family of
a village elder, Mohammed Kubwa Seif, eventually marrying the man's daughter,
Amina.

A native of the Comoros, an archipelago off the coast of Mozambique, Fazul
spoke the local language, Kiswahili, and knew the coast's Islamic culture.

Yet even in Siyu, his religious fundamentalism stood out.

Fazul "didn't want us praying near graves or celebrating the Prophet's
birthday" - two common Muslim practices on the coast, said Mohammed Ali, a
fisherman. "Most people ignored him."

The police did, too.

"I met him once," said Majid Hussein, a police officer in the nearby town of
Lamu. "He was walking around reading from a little Quran ... I thought he was
just another one of these wandering preachers."

Fazul wasn't. And Kenyan officials say some people in town may have been
paying attention to what he was saying: Seif has been charged by a Kenyan court
with conspiracy to commit murder for his alleged role in four al-Qaida plots,
including the embassy bombing and the 2002 hotel bombing north of Mombasa, an
attack that killed 15 people, including three Israeli tourists.

Seif's son, Kubwa Mohammed, has been charged with murder in connection with
the hotel attack.

It's not clear whether Fazul put down any money to establish a safe haven in
Siyu, but he apparently felt the village was a safe place to hide. Following the
hotel attack, he spent another two months in Siyu, disappearing only last
January.

However, he reportedly slipped back into Mombasa in May, prompting a round of
terror alerts from the United States and Britain. U.S. and Kenyan officials
believe he's still in region, probably in Kenya or Somalia.

---

Nabhan, who has not been charged with any crimes, also figured into the May
terror warnings.

The Kenyan is believed to have joined al-Qaida after the 1998 embassy bombing
and was the alleged ringleader of a plot to destroy the new U.S. Embassy in
Nairobi this past June.

Raised in a relatively well-off Mombasa family, Nabhan regularly frequented
the downtown Noor Mosque, which attracts poorer Muslims, in the two years before
the 2002 hotel attack, said Abdullah, an elderly man at the mosque.

Nabhan "was well-dressed, clean-shaven, very polite," said Abdullah, who gave
only a first name. "Very quiet, very simple - he just prayed."

But Ibrahim, a 19-year-old Somali immigrant who also worships at the mosque,
said Nabhan often preached to the younger Muslims. An illegal immigrant, Ibrahim
spoke on the condition that only his first name be used.

Nabhan, he said, "explained America, Israel are what? They are enemies. He
said we must do what? We must destroy them."

It's not clear whether Nabhan, who in the fall of 2002 rented a house in
Mombasa where police say the car bomb used in the hotel attack was made, first
met another Kenyan al-Qaida suspect - Salmin Mohammed Khamis - at the Noor
mosque.

But when Khamis was arrested June 17, he reportedly told police that Nabhan
invited him to a secret al-Qaida meeting a month earlier in Malindi, a town
north of Mombasa, where the plot to destroy the new U.S. Embassy was hatched.

Like Fazul, Nabhan is also thought to be hiding in either Kenya or Somalia.

GRAPHIC: AP Photos NY395-396 of Jan. 7

LOAD-DATE: January 8, 2004

posted by prof_booty | 12:02 PM