Military

DATE=1-14-02

TYPE=Dateline

NUMBER=7-35807

TITLE=The War on Terrorism: Who's Next?

BYLINE=Pat Bodnar

TELEPHONE=619-1101

DATELINE=Washington

EDITOR=Neal Lavon

CONTENT=

INTRO: Since the start of the war on terrorism, officials in Washington have focused attention on ousting the former Taleban regime in Afghanistan for its support of terror. But as the new interim government takes shape in Kabul, the global coalition is now considering additional targets in a second phase of the U.S.-led initiative. We hear more now in this Dateline report with VOA's Pat Bodnar.

PB: Comments by U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and operations deputy Rear Admiral John Stufflebeem suggest that if a new target is selected in the war against terrorism, it could be Somalia. Somalia is a poor East African nation, seen by many as a failed state and a country trying to regain some semblance of a national government. In Somalia, 12 U.S. soldiers were killed and more than 70 wounded in 1993 during a battle which broke out in a United Nations-sponsored peacekeeping effort. The incident became the basis for a current American movie called Black Hawk Down.

TAPE: CUT 1, MONTAGE FROM BLACK HAWK DOWN, :23

".I love you babe.-[SOUND OF EXPLOSIONS].Audrey D! [Yelling] Black Hawk down! Black Hawk down!.My men are surrounded by thousands of Somalia militia, I need help now!.[FADE OUT HERE]

PB: Mr. Wolfowitz said of Somalia, "It is a country virtually without a government; a country that has a certain al-Qaida presence already." Florida Senator Bob Graham, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, noted on network television recently that the U.S. has many al-Qaida cells to pursue worldwide, and Somalia has one of them.

TAPE: CUT 2, GRAHAM ACT, :31

"The Administration has not made a decision as to what our policy is going to be after Afghanistan. My own personal hope is that we will not lose sight of what our mission is. Our mission is to destroy global terrorism. In my judgement the next phase of that mission should be other al-Qaida cells outside of Afghanistan. There are no doubt those cells in Somalia as well as in 20 to 40 other countries around the world."

PB: Since the terrorist attacks on the United States in September, little attention has been paid to sub-Saharan Africa. But the region has great relevance to the current war on terrorism, and Somalia, familiar to Americans since the 1993 incident involving U.S. troops, is one of the likely candidates.

Experts say Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network has cells in Somalia. The radical Islamic fundamentalist group Al Ittihad (aL-ITT_ee-HOD) Al-Islamiya (al-IS-lam-ee-yuh) has been operating in the country for over a decade. The group, originally a fund-raising organization linked to Osama bin Laden, is suspected of complicity in the 1993 American military fatalities, and is accused of funding terrorist training camps in Somalia. Another group, the banking institution, al Barakaat, has joined Al Ittihad on the Bush Administration's list of proscribed terrorist organizations. Al Barakaat is a paperless financial exchange system employing money brokers worldwide. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says the al- Qaida network remains strong in dozens of places worldwide.

TAPE: CUT 3, RUMSFELD ACT, :38

"..If you have activities in whatever the number40, 50, 60 countries, as has been said, and if you have bank accounts to the extent that they have, and if you have recruited relatively successfully over a sustained period, and if you had the kind of money and kind of fake passports and the kind of organization that was demonstrated on September 11th, one has to know that there are al-Qaida related people with that kind of training, with that kind of money, with those kinds of false passports, with those kinds of intentions, that are spread in multiple countries."

PB: Ken Menkhaus is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Davidson College and a specialist on Somalia and Islamic movements. He is a consultant for both the United Nations and the United States. He says there are several criteria the U.S. will use in deciding if Somalia is where it strikes next.

TAPE: CUT 4, MENKHAUS ACT., :22

"One would certainly begin with states that are primarily Islamic, or have relatively large Islamic populations, particularly if they are aggrieved in significant ways, and therefore amenable to politicization. Failed states would certainly make the list. States that are either partially collapsed or completely collapsed. By these criteria and the power of deduction, Somalia makes the short list."

PB: Although it has an interim government, Somalia remains largely lawless, and run by regional warlords. Professor Menkhaus says major Somali power and financial bases are now located outside the country in Dubai and Nairobi, and up to a third of Somalis live abroad. Ken Menkhaus says that terrorism linked to Somalia is externally based, but its situation as a "diaspora nation" allows terrorism to be nourished and exported.

TAPE: CUT 5, MENKHAUS ACT., :16

"In the case of Somalia, I think its fair to say that the terrorism that we have linked to Somalia, particularly some evidence that the U.S. embassy bombing in Nairobi involved some trans-shipment, and movement through Somalia, is external."

PB: Somalia is now also considered a possible destination for al-Qaida leaders fleeing from Afghanistan. Retired Colonel Daniel Smith is the Chief of Research at the Center for Defense Information, a non-profit research organization that evaluates global security. He says to prevent Somalia from becoming a haven for fleeing al-Qaida fighters, U.S. warships are reportedly stationed off the coast.

TAPE: CUT 6, DANIEL SMITH, ACT., :17

"Ships and air reconnaissance flights are in the neighborhood, and the flights are over-flying Somali territory, taking pictures and looking for activity on the ground, which might be associated with al-Qaida or terrorist training facilities in general."

PB: U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says Somalia is the home to al-Qaida training camps. He points out that the United States is strengthening its intelligence about whether the camps are currently active, where potential terrorist threats are, and what the U.S. can do to stop them before they occur.

TAPE: CUT 7, RUMSFELD, ACT, :09

"We know that there have been training camps there, and that they have been active over the years, and that like most of them, they go inactive when people get attentive to them."

PB: Former U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia and coordinator for Somalia in the State Department, David Shinn says that Washington should work to prevent terrorist operations in sub-Saharan Africa as well as lower levels of conflict in the region. While he was Ambassador to Ethiopia, Mr. Shinn says he went on record to put the radical Islamic group Al Ittihad on the terrorist list. But, he cautions, military action in Somalia would be imprudent at this time.

TAPE: CUT 8, SHINN ACT., :13

"I think there is enough evidence that Al Ittihad is a very troubling organization, that steps need to be taken against it. But that does not mean you start bombing. There are other things you can do quietly and discretely, and that is the direction I would like to see us move in."

PB: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld adds that the United States is moving forward with its allies on a variety of fronts, including those in Somalia, to defeat the al-Qaida network.

TAPE: CUT 9, RUMSFELD ACT., 1:25

"The intelligence-gathering process in proceeding apace. Indeed, we are increasing our military intelligence gathering and national intelligence gathering, for the purpose of attempting to strengthen the knowledge we have about where the potential threats can come from and what we can do about stopping them before they occur."

The law enforcement process is continuing apace. People are being arrested. They're being interrogated. We're still in the process of freezing bank accounts. In addition, we're are dealing with all the countries that have signed on to be helpful in the coalition, in various ways, and encouraging them to take steps internally.

And steps are being taken internally; things have been happening in a variety of countries that have been very helpful. And I suspect that what will take place in the period ahead is that countries will be visited with about the kinds of things we feel they could do to be helpful, and they'll be encouraged to be helpful, and I would suspect that most countries will be cooperative in trying to be helpful.

To the extent countries are harboring terrorists and not being helpful, then we'll have to find different ways of dealing with them."

PB: The Center for Defense Information's Colonel Daniel Smith says the United States already has intelligence assets on the ground in Somalia, and has met with warlords and the various factions in the country.

TAPE: CUT 10, DANIEL SMITH ACT., :29

"Westerners, presumably U.S. operatives were seen on the ground, talking to some of the warlords who comprise the opposition group to the transitional national government. The group is called the Somali Reconciliation and Restoration Council. All these things have come together to suggest at least the U.S. is taking a very close look at Somalia, if not planning for possible intervention."

PB: While Somalia looks increasingly like a candidate for the next phase of the war on terrorism, other nations in Africa might be selected as well. Such countries include Eritrea, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan and Ethiopia. In particular, Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia all have been named by Washington as having al-Qaida cells.

U.S. officials have identified several dozen countries where al-Qaida continues to operate despite the near destruction of its primary logistical base in Afghanistan. Secretary of State Colin Powell has warned several countries-including Somalia-that they must deny safe haven to terrorists if they want to avoid being targeted in the next phase of the war on terrorism.

For Dateline, I'm Pat Bodnar.

TAPE: CUT 11, BLACK HAWK DOWN MUSIC, SNEAK BRING IN FULL TO TIME., 2:57