World seeks ‘second chance’ for Somalia

British Prime Minister David Cameron said the London conference would try to
bolster tentative signs of progress, including a recent fall in the number
of pirate attacks off Somalia’s coast.

The European Union’s naval antipiracy patrol said pirates hijacked six vessels
between May and December 2011, compared to 19 between January and April.
Ransoms last year cost the shipping industry about $135 million.

“It means working with all the parts of Somalia – which has been more
blighted by famine, by disease, by violence, by terrorism than almost any
other in the world – to give that country a second chance,”
Cameron told lawmakers on Wednesday.

In New York, the UN Security Council voted unanimously to authorise an
increase in the African Union peacekeeping force – known as AMISOM – from
12,000 to about 17,700 and expand its areas of operation in an effort to
intensify pressure on militants.

Al-Shabab – which earlier this month formalised its relationship with al-Qaida
– is currently being hit from three sides in Somalia, pressed out of
Mogadishu by AMISOM soldiers, while Kenyan forces who moved into Somalia in
October pressure the militants from the south and Ethiopian forces sweep in
from the west.

The leaders of Kenya and Ethiopia, who sent in troops amid concerns that
Somalia’s instability would spread over their borders, are attending the
London talks.

Western intelligence agencies worry that al-Shabab militants, including
foreign fighters trained in Somali camps, could attempt to mount attacks in
Europe and the U.S. In Britain, which hosts the 2012 Olympics in July, spy
agencies are recruiting Somali language specialists.

“The security threat is real, it is substantial. It is based on the fact
that al-Shabab is an organisation that has now explicitly linked itself to
al-Qaida, and it encourages violent jihad not just in Somalia but also
outside Somalia,” Cameron told the BBC Somali service television.

Officials estimate about 40 people have travelled from the U.S. to Somalia to
join al-Shabab since 2007, and that around 50 Britons are currently fighting
there. Security officials believe Somali training camps are now being used
by foreign extremists with no ties to the country, many of whom have been
squeezed out of Pakistan’s borderlands.

In a message posted to a recognised Twitter feed, Al-Shabab accused Cameron of “meddling
in Islam affairs in the hope of reviving a hopeless dream of a British Empire”
by holding the talks.

Eritrea, which is accused by Somalia and the U.N. of providing support to
al-Shabab, has been refused an invitation.

Leaders of the northern breakaway republic of Somaliland will take a role –
but won’t win the international recognition they crave, Cameron said.
Critics of Western efforts have suggested that local administrations in
Somaliland and neighbouring Puntland offer a better model for the entire
country than attempts to create a central authority.

Explaining Somali’s progress against piracy, Capt. Phil Haslam, a naval
officer with the EU antipiracy patrol, said pirates currently hold seven
vessels and 191 hostages, compared to 32 ships and 661 hostages in January
2011.

But Haslam, based at the EU’s antipiracy headquarters in London, warned that
the EU and other international missions are covering about 3.2 million
square miles with around 25 boats. “It’s akin to policing Europe with
25 police cars,” he said.

Clinton and Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague will travel from the
London talks to a conference on Syria’s future being held Friday in Tunis.

Source: agencies

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