Six countries to avoid...brilliant deduction!
Posted on 05/16/2003 5:51:07 PM PDT by blam
Return of al-Qa'ida provokes panic across the world
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
17 May 2003
The United States, Britain and Australia the three countries that sent ground troops to depose Saddam Hussein have issued a spate of new warnings on possible terrorist attacks in Asian, Arab and African countries. But several of the countries named are complaining that the alerts are unjustified and an overreaction.
In the most specific warning, the US State Department said it had received information that an attack could be launched "in the near future" against "Western interests" in the Alhamra district of the Red Sea port of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. Some American consular staff and their families living there have been moved to new lodgings as a precaution.
The alert came 24 hours after the State Department told US citizens to avoid travelling to Kenya and other east African countries and Britain took the more drastic step of suspending commercial flights to and from Kenya. It also coincided with the Foreign Office's advice to Britons, yesterday, that visits to the entire east Africa region, including Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Tanzania and Uganda, presented a terror threat.
At the same time, Australia and New Zealand issued their own alert on possible new terrorist attacks in south Asia. Last October a nightclub full of tourists was bombed in Bali, killing about 200 people.
Australians should be "extremely cautious" in Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, East Timor, Brunei and Malaysia, the Foreign Ministry in Canberra warned. Its statement follows a separate American alert for Malaysia, centred on Sabah, the Malaysian state on the northern tip of the island of Borneo.
The series of alerts reflects the abrupt change in mood after three suicide attacks in Riyadh on Monday night, and the realisation that Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'ida organisation may be down, but certainly not out. Robert Jordan, the US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, went so far as to describe that country as "a battleground ... rather than a nice place for civilians to live". The synchronised and well-planned bombings were "if not the Saudi Sept-ember 11, certainly the Saudis' Pearl Harbor", he said.
In Washington, Abu al-Jubeir, a senior Saudi Foreign Ministry adviser, said there should be no doubt about his country's resolve to find those responsible for "this heinous crime". Riyadh would learn from its mistakes and co-operate fully with its allies around the world to make sure there was no repeat, he insisted.
But for America, which has complained of inadequate help from the Saudis over past incidents, the proof of that pudding will be in the eating.
Any Saudi contrition contrasts with a withering response from Malaysia to warnings directed to its own soil which raises the question of whether such alerts, if not specific, do more harm than good, by making people less inclined to take seriously more precise terrorist threats.
Mahathir Mohammed, the Malaysian Prime Minister and a strong critic of the American-led invasion of Iraq, declared that the insecurity after the Iraq conflict had left Washington paranoid. "They are afraid of their own shadow, afraid because they know there are many people in this world hating them," he said.
Thailand's response was also dismissive, but it was couched in the more diplomatic language befitting a country heavily dependent on income from Western tourism.
There was "nothing to worry about", said Thaksin Sinawatra, the Thai Prime Minister. He said he was confident that his country was not a target, since it was not an enemy of any terror group, and he urged Australians not to overreact. He added: "I would warn Thais visiting Australia to take care, because that country is a target too."
Six countries to avoid
By Andrew Johnson
SOMALIA Number of Britons: 50. Population: eight million, mostly Sunni Muslim. Chaotic and without a government after 10 years of internal fighting. Warlords still hold sway in the south and order has not been restored since the UN withdrew in 1995. Transitional National Government is trying to create stability. It is believed to be one of al-Qa'ida's major strongholds. Has trade links with Djibouti and insecure border with Ethiopia. President George Bush Snr attempted an invasion of the country in December 1992 but troops were withdrawn after the Black Hawk Down incident in Mogadishu a year later when 18 Americans were killed and 73 wounded.
UGANDA Number of Britons: 3,000. Population: 24 million, 16 per cent Muslim. Increasingly insecure since the government launched operation Iron Fist against rebel Lord's Resistance Army, which for 15 years has subjected the north to child abductions, rape, burning and looting. In September 1998 two men believed to have plotted the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 260 people were arrested entering Uganda's southern border from Kenya.
ETHIOPIA Number of Britons: 1,000. Population: 67 million, 50 per cent Muslim. Ten per cent of the population have HIV or Aids. Border with Somalia is insecure, with local regions forming links with the Somalia's Transitional National Government. A transit hub for the world's heroin and cocaine trades.
ERITREA Number of Britons: 200. Population: 4.5 million. A two-and-a-half-year border war with Ethiopia, from which it won independence in 1991, ended in 2000. Desperately poor, even by African standards. In December it offered help to the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, in countering terrorism.
TANZANIA Number of Britons: 7,500. Population: 37 million, Muslims make up 30 per cent of mainland population. It is riven by Aids and is becoming an important hub for heroin and cocaine trades and money laundering. The Foreign Office warned British holiday makers of increased terrorist threats in January, particularly on the island of Zanzibar where 90 per cent of the population is Muslim. Eight people were killed when a bomb exploded the US embassy in Dar es Salaam in 1998.
DJIBOUTI Number of Britons: 21, mainly aid workers. Population: half a million, all Muslim. Yemen, seen as a stronghold for al-Qa'ida, is across a narrow stretch of the Red Sea. In May 2002 the United States moved 800 special forces into the area for rapid deployment against al-Qa'ida operatives in Yemen. It is possibly the only country to have formal links with Somalia's Transitional Government.
By Robin Gedye and Graham Tibbetts
The Telegraph (UK)
(Filed: 17/05/2003)
Warnings of possible terrorist attacks multiplied across the world yesterday. Australia and New Zealand joined Britain and America in warning their nationals that they faced attack at any time from "freelance" al-Qa'eda cells.
Britain, which has instructed British airlines to halt Kenya flights after a leading al-Qa'eda suspect was reported to be in Mombasa, said that a further six African countries contained a "clear terrorist threat".
The Foreign Office named Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Tanzania and Uganda.
"The bomb attack in Riyadh on May 12 shows that the terrorist threat remains real," the statement said.
Australia and New Zealand warned people travelling in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, East Timor and Brunei to be on their guard.
The US State Department said that it feared an imminent attack in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, after the suicide bombings in Riyadh on Monday.
Governments believe that sleeper al-Qa'eda cells, which have been making plans since the start of the war on Iraq, will take the Saudi attacks as a signal to act against Western targets.
"It could be a variety of potential targets," an American official said. "It could be a variety of types of attacks."
A series of terrorist scares this week has raised international concerns to their highest level since the September 11 attacks on America.
These include more than 20 explosions at Pakistani petrol stations and the arrest of a nest of terrorists planning to attack the US embassy in Beirut. Senior Pakistani government officials said yesterday that, while they believed that America had scored considerable success in disrupting the al-Qa'eda leadership and killing or capturing thousands of its "footsoldiers", a new threat had developed.
One said: "After being hunted down in Afghanistan, al-Qa'eda spread out across the world and is operating without any central leadership with far greater ability to gain recruits."
The International Institute for Strategic Studies said in its annual report that al-Qa'eda was now "more insidious and just as dangerous" as it was before September 11.
Up to 1,200 British tourists, stranded in Kenya after BA and Monarch cancelled all flights, have been promised flights home by Kenya Airways.
And mine to Djibouti. I'm going to Puyallup instead.
And I ain't going to Nigeria to pick up a check....I told my new friend to just put it in the mail.
Six countries to avoid...brilliant deduction!
Talk about dumb headlines. Yah, they're shaking in their boots down there in Paraguay (or was that Uruguay?).
IIRC there was no invasion of Somalia in 1992. There was a very successful humanitarian operation. When Slick took over, he removed the marine in charge (the one who was well connected with the local good guys) and turned the operation into an attempt to kidnap Aideed. That's when it got all mucked up because Slick and his SOD wouldn't give the troops the armor they needed. READ Blackhawk down (don't just go see the movie) it'll give you plenty of insight.
I doubt if they're Iraqis, we did such a "bad" thing, ugh.
You don't really expect Rupert Cornwell to be deflected by facts which contradict his agenda, do you?
Yeh, well that's what the Saudies said too.
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