US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has warned Eritrea to stop backing Islamist rebels opposed to Somali president Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed of face US action.
The US accuses Eritrea of funneling weapons and funds to the al-Shabaab militia, which for the past two months has been pressing an offensive in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, in its bid to oust Sheikh Sharif.
“It is long past time for Eritrea to cease and desist its support for al-Shabaab, and to start being a productive rather than a destabilising neighbour,” Mrs Clinton told reporters today at a joint briefing with Sharif in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
"We are making it very clear that their actions are unacceptable. We intend to take action if they do not cease."
More than 140,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in Mogadishu since the start of June amid the Islamist offensive, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said last week. The rebels, including the Hisb-ul-Islam movement, control most of southern and central Somalia following a two-year war.
After the meeting, Mr Sharif said the Americans pledged military and humanitarian aid to his government.
“In terms of promises there were many,” Mr Sharif said of his meeting with Mrs Clinton. “Promises on the security front, there were promises on the humanitarian front. When they materialise, it will be very helpful to the people of Somalia.”
The US has already supplied 40 tons of arms and munitions to Somalia since fighting broke out on May 7th in an effort to bolster Mr Sharif’s government. It has also provided more than $135 million in training, equipment and logistical support to an African Union peacekeeping mission in the country, Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, said last month.
Al-Shabaab has been accused by the US of providing safe-haven and logistical support to al-Qaeda, which aims to establish a caliphate, or Islamic government, in Somalia. Hisb- ul-Islam is led by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the former head of the Islamic Courts Union that captured most of southern Somalia in 2006 before being ousted by US-backed Ethiopian soldiers the following year.
Mr Aweys was previously based in Asmara, capital of Eritrea. The Eritrean government has denied it supports Mr Aweys.
“If al-Shabaab were to obtain a haven in Somalia, which could then attract al-Qaeda and other actors, it would be a threat to the United States,” Mrs Clinton said.
“We believe his government is the best hope we’ve had in quite some time for a return to stability and the possibility of progress in Somalia,” Mrs Clinton said today. The Somali government “is in a much stronger position now.”
Mrs Clinton said ahead of the meeting with Sharif that the US is prepared to support the efforts of the African Union peacekeeping mission to restore order in Somalia. The country is in its 18th year of civil war and hasn’t had a functioning central administration since the ouster of Mohamed Siad Barre, the former dictator, in 1991.
The African Union Mission in Somalia, or Amisom, currently has 3,750 peacekeepers in Somalia, 2,050 from Uganda and 1,700 from Burundi, according to its Web site.
Earlier today, Mrs Clinton visited a memorial park in Nairobi to commemorate the victims of the terrorist bombings on August 7th, 1998, of the US embassies in Kenya and neighboring Tanzania. At least 224 people died in the simultaneous attacks.
Mrs Clinton also addressed a town hall meeting in Nairobi. She flies to Johannesburg today, the second stop on her seven-nation Africa tour.
Bloomberg