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INBOX: Press Cliips for June
16,
2003 Page
17 of
21
"And
we
need
to
return
to
that kind
of
diplomatic
effort.
. .
,"
Beers
was
saying, over
the
droning sound.
His war
goes
on.
8) 5-Year Hunt Fails to Net Qaeda Suspect in Africa
By
DESMOND BUTLER
New York
TimesMOMBASA, Kenya — A recent urgent terrorism alert in Kenya is the latest frustrating chapter in a five-year
international manhuntfor one of theworld's
most
wantedQaeda suspects,American andKenyan
officials say.Thealert was issued in May
after
the suspect,
Fazul
Abdullah Muhammad, was sighted in Mombasa.
Investigators
say he has been an associate of Osama bin Laden since the early
1990's
and is the leader of
AlQaeda's
operations in East Africa.The
officials
said theyhadbeen pursuinghim —sometimes closeon hisheels—sinceheemergedin theinvestigation of the bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in
1998.
What
has helped Mr. Muhammad evade capture, Western officials say, is Kenya's porous 420-mile border with
Somalia, an anarchic and lawless country
where
the American presence all but evaporated in the early
90's
after
a military debacle in which
18
G.l.'s
were
killed.
"In
East
Africa,
our most serious vulnerability is that we are neighboring the Somali Republic, a land with nogovernment,"Dave Mwangi, Kenya's permanent secretary for provincial administration of national security, saidin
an
interview
in
Nairobi.
"As
long
as
Somalia
remains that
way,
people
can
hide
there.
We have a
long,
porous
border, which
will
remain
a
threat."
One
result of the Sept. 11,
2001,
terrorist attacks in the United States was an American
effort
to re-establishsomeintelligence operations in Somalia. Now, with Mr. Muhammad's suspected use of Somali territory as ahiding place
and staging area, Western officials here
say,
the United States is
increasing
its involvement,
pursuing alliances with competing warlords in an
effort
to monitor ports and airfields.Kenyan officials saidMr.Muhammad audaciously returnedtoMombasa, formerlyhisbase,in Mayeven though
his
photograph had been circulated to the police throughout the country and the region. He has been accused in
the
attack here last November in which suicide bombers rammed an explosives-laden car into the ParadiseHotel,killing
13
people, as well as in an attempt to shoot down an Israeli passenger jet with a shoulder-firedmissile.Shortly
before
his appearance in Mombasa, Mr. Muhammad was spotted in a mosque in Mogadishu, the Somalicapital, according to Kenyan and Western officials.Since then Western antiterror agents, increasingly convinced that he and several Qaeda associates are usingSomalia as a sanctuary and transit point for weapons and explosives, have been working to persuade warlords
who
control key airfields to produce flight manifests and allow the monitoring of ports.
A
contingentofGerman surveillance planes basedinMombasais nowmonitoring shipsandcommunicationininternational waters along the Somali coast with the aid of Western intelligence agents in Somali ports and incoordination with American forcesinBahrain, accordingto aGerman military official. They have been searching
for
suspect
ships, including some identified as having ties to Qaeda business interests and operations,according to the official.
In
May, the State Department warned of the "credible threat" of another terrorist attack in Kenya, mentioning the
risk
of an assault using shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles.
After
a similar warning from the British government,
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6/16/03
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