HIGHLIGHTS OF NIF ROLE IN THE GREATER HORN OF AFRICA

The Sudanese, Bin Laden and Al Qaeda Connections
The U.S.-led United Nations operation in Somalia , which in 1992 first sought to provide humanitarian relief for millions of Somalis threatened by starvation and which later engaged in a nation-building exercise, coincided with the relocation from Afghanistan to Sudan of Osama Bin Laden and his burgeoning terrorist network. Both the radical NIF government in Khartoum and Bin Laden regarded the U.S. presence in Somalia as an attempt to dominate a Muslim state and a threat to their Islamic hegemonic ambitions in the region. Al Qaeda opposed the involvement of the United States armed forces in the Gulf War in 1991 and in Operation Restore Hope in Somalia in 1992 and 1993, which were viewed by Al Qaeda as the beginning of preparations for an American occupation of Islamic countries. During the same period, Bin Laden and his strategists reportedly wanted to establish an Islamic state in Eritrea as a staging ground for carrying their Islamic revolution to Yemen and Ethiopia . Somalia likely constituted a southern beach head in this regional strategy. Both the Sudanese government and Bin Laden became allies in an effort to make the region a radical Islamic state and to oppose U.S. actions in the region. AI AI leaders reportedly met in 1992 with bin Laden in Khartoum where the two organizations consolidated their alliance. The next year, 1993, proved to be a key year in the efforts of both of them to oppose the U.S. presence in Somalia .
The authors of this study have found mounting evidence suggesting that significant numbers of mujahidin veterans of the Afghanistan war were actively supporting AI AI in its operations in the 1990's. These veterans, whether Somalis or so-called "Afghan Arabs," provided critical training to AI AI militia and fought alongside AI AI militiamen. Their involvement with AI AI may help explain the Taliban-like military tactics employed by AI AI. The National Islamic Front-type tactics previously described may be explained by the significant support provided by Sudan .
According to U.S. officials, bin Laden spent $3 million to recruit and airlift elite veterans of the Afghan jihad to Somalia via third countries, such as Yemen and Ethiopia . Al Qaeda also used its East Africa cell, based in Kenya and Tanzania , as a gateway to Somalia . Al Qaeda operatives in Kenya shuttled between Mogadishu and Khartoum using Nairobi as a hub of operation. In addition, two Al Qaeda front organizations based in Nairobi , the Islamic charities-Help Africa People and Mercy International-- provided support for AI AI humanitarian activities after 1994.
Al Qaeda's first strike against the U.S. military presence in Somalia is believed to have been the organization's first ever terrorist bombing. In 1992 Al Qaeda exploded a bomb at a hotel in Yemen used by American military personnel en route to humanitarian operations in Somalia . American military personnel were not in the hotel at the time, but a number of civilians were killed in the blast.
Al Qaeda planned additional actions against U.S forces, and a number of Al Qaeda operators were dispatched to Somalia to train AI AI and other forces in their battle against the U.S.-led force. Mohammed Saddiqi Odeh, a Palestinian born in Jordan , was among those dispatched to Somalia , and an Afghanistan-trained member of the team which would later bomb the US embassy in Tanzania , Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, traveled by fishing boat from Kenya to Somalia to give military training to AI AI. According to British government information, Mohamed Atef, the now-deceased Al-Qaeda operator who had been in charge of its training and organizing of military and terrorist operations, was also dispatched to Somalia in 1992 and 1993 to instigate actions against American and UN forces. The British account claims that Atef trained Somalis to fight UN forces and that Al Qaeda operatives participated in the October 1993 attack against U.S. helicopters that resulted in the ultimate departure of U.S. forces. Another Al Qaeda leader who trained Somali militia members was Abdullah Ahmed Abdulla. He was among 480 Arab combatants who joined bin Laden when he moved to Sudan in 1991. From Sudan , he moved to Somalia , and in 1998 he moved to Kenya , where he arranged and paid for the travel of the Al Qaeda operatives who planned the August 7, 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania .
In a 1997 interview with CNN, Bin Laden gloated that Al-Qaeda had trained and organized the Somali fighters who did the actual fighting against the U.S. forces.. Al-Qaeda members are suspected of teaching General Aidid's militia how to shoot down U.S. helicopters by altering the fuses of rocket-propelled grenades so that they exploded in mid-air. This tactic, developed by the Afghan mujahidin in their war against the Soviet Union , was the same one Al Qaeda forces used to bring down two U.S. helicopters near Gardez , Afghanistan , during Operation Anaconda in early March 2002.
AI AI's anti-American stance appears to have been planned in Khartoum . In February 1993 four Somali Islamist organizations, including AI AI, met there to discuss strategy for expanding fundamentalism in Somalia . This may explain the decision to move AI AI forces into Mogadishu at this time. A month later, a U.S. military spokesman in Mogadishu announced that U.S. troops had found a cache of arms at a compound belonging to AI AI, and about mid-year, AI AI launched an anti-Western and anti-U.S. propaganda effort, calling for Jihad against the United States .

Arabic Forum