U.S. to convene strategy session on Somalia

updated 6:44 p.m. ET June 9, 2006

WASHINGTON - The United States will invite other nations to a strategy session next week on Somalia, where an Islamic militia group has routed U.S.-backed warlords and tightened its grip on the lawless nation.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday that European and African nations are among the members of an international consortium that will try to coordinate support for Somalia, which has had no fully working government for 15 years.

McCormack offered few details of the group or its agenda. The short notice reflected concern here about the tightening grip of the militia on the Somali capital, Mogadishu, and other cites.

On Tuesday, President Bush indicated concern that Somalia could become as Afghanistan was under the Taliban.

“There’s instability in Somalia,” Bush said. “The first concern, of course, is to make sure that Somalia does not become an al-Qaida safe haven — it doesn’t become a place from which terrorists can plot and plan.”

Dubbed the Somalia Contact Group
The United States has scrambled over the past week to respond to the collapse of the secular alliance of warlords it viewed as a counter to a militia with alleged links to al-Qaida.

“There are a number of different countries that have programs related to Somalia,” McCormack said. “So this is an opportunity for them to talk about what they’re doing individually, how you might coordinate ... how you might look at doing things jointly.”

U.S. involvement in Somalia The United States may be open to dealing with Islamic militia who took over Somalia’s capital this week, possibly signaling a new approach to the lawless Horn of Africa country. Following are some key dates in Washington’s relations with Somalia in the past 15 years. December 1992: The United States sends 28,000 troops to Somalia at head of “Operation Restore Hope,” a U.N. military effort to quell Somalia’s wartime famine. October 1993: 18 U.S. Army Rangers are killed when Somali militias shoot down two military helicopters. The United States later suspects the Somalis were trained by al-Qaida, and the event is dramatized in the movie “Black Hawk Down.” March 1994: The United States ends its mission in Somalia. August 1998: Truck bombs claimed by al-Qaida kill more than 200 people at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Suspects include Somali citizens, and the United States receives reports that al-Qaida members are in Somalia. December 2002: The United States sends 1,300 military personnel to establish a counterterrorism unit near Somalia. Based in Djibouti, the task force is designed to hunt for militant groups in six Horn of Africa countries, including Somalia. Commanders discuss sharing security technology with regional forces and training them in counterterrorism techniques. Early 2006: Somali warlords form an “Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism.” Experts on Somalia later suspect the United States is funding the group, whose secular members have been battling Islamic militias for control of the country. June 6, 2006: Islamic militias take over Mogadishu. June 7: U.S. officials signal they may be open to dealing with the militias. Reuters

The gathering in New York will mark the inaugural meeting of what will be known, as the Somalia Contact Group, McCormack said.

Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer will head the U.S. delegation. McCormack said a goal of the meeting will be to support Somalia’s transitional government, a weak entity that has no presence in the capital. Its main strength comes from the many foreign governments, the United States included, that support it.

Militia won Mogadishu Monday
The United States has no embassy in Somalia, a desperate and poor nation with a dark history for U.S. involvement.

The U.S. has not carried out direct action in Somalia since the deaths of 18 servicemen in a 1993 battle in Mogadishu depicted in the book and film “Black Hawk Down.”

The Islamic fighters seized control of Mogadishu on Monday, defeating U.S.-backed warlords after weeks of fighting that left more than 330 people dead.

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, have confirmed cooperating with the warlords in an attempt to root out any al-Qaida members operating in the Horn of Africa.

The Bush administration has not confirmed or denied backing the alliance, saying only that it supports those who fight terror.

The militia, which hopes to establish a government based on Islamic law, is gaining ground just as the U.N.-backed interim government struggles to assert control outside its base in Baidoa, 155 miles from Mogadishu.

The militia is the first group to consolidate control over the capital since the last government collapsed in 1991 and warlords took over, dividing this impoverished country of 8 million people into a patchwork of rival fiefdoms.

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