Canadians arrested in bid to flee Somalia

 

Detained with group of suspected Islamist fighters near Kenyan border

  

January 03, 2007

Michelle Shephard

STAFF REPORTER

The Toronto Star

 

Ethiopian troops fly a Somali flag on their arrival in the port city of Kismayo Monday after dislodging Islamist fighters from their last remaining stronghold in Somalia and sending many fleeing to Kenya.

 

Canadians are reportedly among a group of suspected Islamist fighters detained in Kenya after their arrest near the Somalia border, but the whereabouts of the group's leaders, and Canada's most senior member, are still unknown.

 

Abdullahi Afrah Asparo, a former Toronto grocer who was one of the leaders of the Union of Islamic Courts movement, has not been seen since Ethiopian and Somali troops forced the Islamists to abandon the Somali capital of Mogadishu last week.

 

UIC leaders Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys and Sheik Sharif Ahmed fled to the southern town of Kismayo in a convoy of armed vehicles and then scattered near the Kenyan border as they were forced out of their last stronghold on Monday – but it's not believed that Asparo was with them.

 

Yesterday, Kenyan police said they are sealing the border to stop fleeing Islamists. They said they captured the two Canadians and eight others posing as refugees. A local media report said the detainees would be questioned by Kenya's Anti-Terrorism Police Unit and security service.

 

Government spokesman Alfred Mutua told the The New York Times they would likely be kept in Kenyan custody until Somalia's transitional government sets up a judicial system to try them. Mutua said all 10 men did not appear to be refugees and were carrying "briefcases packed with cash."

 

It remained unclear last night whether there were one or two suspects detained with Canadians passports. Despite statements from Kenyan and Ethiopian officials mentioning two Canadians, Foreign Affairs spokesperson Réjean Beaulieu said Canadian consular officials were looking into only one case.

 

An unnamed security official told Associated Press that one of the suspects with a Canadian passport is Bashir Ali Makhtar, a member of the Ethiopian rebel group, the Ogaden National Liberation Front. The identity of the second Canadian is unknown.

 

In a September interview with the Toronto Star in Mogadishu, Asparo said he had returned a decade ago to the capital and believed the UIC had the ability to bring peace to a country that has been without an effective government for 15 years.

 

"There's a bright future if things go on like this," he said in the interview at Mogadishu's university. "We can say people will be saved, resources may come back, international relations may improve, construction may happen, people's trust in each other may be renewed."

 

Until late December, the UIC controlled Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia and enjoyed widespread local support for the stability they brought. But they suffered international condemnation for their hardline rule that some likened to Afghanistan's Taliban. The United States and the United Nations allege some of the leaders, including Aweys, have links to Al Qaeda.

 

Before the UIC disbanded, they appeared unstoppable in their quest to unite Somalia under Islamic rule and defeat the secular, UN-backed transitional federal government that had been established two years earlier, but held little power.

 

Many were surprised at the speed in which the once-shaky government, propped up by Ethiopia's military, defeated the Islamists over the past two weeks. Diplomats from the region were pressing yesterday for a speedy deployment of African peacekeepers to replace the Ethiopians, whose prime minister, Meles Zenawi, said would stay for another "few weeks."

 

Although UIC members are now on the run, some have pledged to launch a guerrilla war against Ethiopia – on whom they have officially declared armed jihad.

 

The fate of the UIC leadership and members holding dual citizenship is uncertain, as Somalia and the international community come to terms with the dramatic reshaping this week of one of the world's most anarchic countries.

 

Despite U.S. allegations of an Al Qaeda link, the UIC is not designated a terrorist organization and its rank and file have been offered amnesty by Somalia's Interim Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi. There would be no impediment to Asparo, or other Canadian members of UIC and its leadership, returning to Canada, Beaulieu said.

 

Professor Ibrahim Hassan Addou, the UIC's foreign affairs minister and a close friend of Asparo, reportedly flew out of Mogadishu before its takeover for talks in Nairobi. Addou was regarded as a moderate UIC leader, which may be why he has been spared arrest in Nairobi.

 

Kenyan, Somali and Ethiopian leaders have vowed, however, to hand over to the U.S. more radical leaders, such as Aweys, if they are captured.

 

According to Somali Canadian Ali Sharmarke, one of the founders of radio and television station HornAfrik, Mogadishu has been tense, but stable over the past three days.

 

"We're accustomed to the ups and downs of Mogadishu," Sharmarke said yesterday in a phone interview from the capital.

 

However, there was confusion over Gedi's announcement of a nationwide disarmament over the next three days since few details were given about how that would happen in a country awash with weapons.

 

"How will they safeguard the guns so that the guns will not end up with one clan using them against the other?" Sharmarke asked. "What about the militia who are unemployed? Will they take their guns and then throw the boys on the street?"

 

Without these answers, suspicious Somalis who have endured years of clan warfare and rivalling warlords, are instead crowding the city's gun market and stockpiling weapons.