Somalia's insurgents secretly armed
U.N. panel finds that Eritrea has sent missiles and explosives to Islamic militants
Nairobi, Kenya - Islamic surgents have enough surface-to-air missiles, suicide vests and explosives to sustain their war against the internationally backed Somali government, largely because of secret shipments from Eritrea, a U.N. monitoring panel said in a report.
The report, obtained yesterday by the Associated Press, said Eritrea has shipped a "huge quantity of arms" to the insurgents, known as the Shabab. The shipments continued despite U.N. efforts to bring peace to Somalia and the deployment of African Union peacekeepers.
Eritrea denied providing any assistance to the Shabab, the militant wing of an Islamic group that ruled much of southern Somalia for six months last year. U.S. officials say they believe the militants have close ties to al-Qaida.
There are more arms in Somalia now than at any time since the country's civil war broke out in 1991 and "there is no clearly established authority that has the capability of exercising control over a majority of the arms," the report found.
The Monitoring Group on Somalia was appointed by the U.N. Security Council to report on violations of the arms embargo on Somalia established in 1992.
Since the start of the civil war, various clans and religious groups have struggled for power.
Ethiopian and government troops have since come under near daily attacks by the Shabab, and the Islamic leadership continues to operate from Eritrea.
Since December, "huge quantities of arms have been provided to the Shabab by and through Eritrea," the U.N. monitors said. Eritrea has supplied the insurgents with SA-18 surface-to-air-missiles, one of which was used to shoot down a Belarussian cargo plane on March 23, the U.N. said.
"The SA-18 was reported to be part of a consignment of six SA-18s that had been delivered by Eritrea to [the Shabab]," the report said. "The group has also learned ... that additional missiles may be secreted in arms caches."
Eritrean Information Minister Ali Abdu denied that his country has provided any assistance to the Shabab.
"It is a total fabrication and the intention of the report is to depict it as if there is a proxy war between Eritrea and Ethiopia," Abdu told the AP from Asmara, the Eritrean capital.
