Ethiopia may have aided Somali leader's ouster

U.N. downplays terror link

From Catherine Bond
CNN Nairobi Bureau

NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) -- Ethiopian troops may have played a role in overthrowing the new president of the Somali state of Puntland, Western diplomatic sources in the region said Tuesday.

According to the sources, Ethiopian forces delivered weapons in Puntland over the weekend, presumably to supporters of Ethiopian-backed former president Abdullahi Yusuf. Yusuf recently staged a comeback, routing Puntland's newly elected President Jama Ali Jama, the sources said.

Ethiopia contends the Islamic fundamentalist movement Al-Ittihad is active in Puntland, which the United States has placed on its list of terrorist organizations. Western diplomats say the U.S. military is considering giving Ethiopia a green light to intervene militarily in southern Somalia, but a senior U.N. official responsible for Somalia said Tuesday he doubts that Al-Ittihad has much support inside the country.

"I have never dealt with anyone who has overtly expressed sympathy with those people," David Stephen, the U.N. representative for Somalia, told a news conference Tuesday in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.

The United Nations on Tuesday launched an $83 million appeal for aid from richer nations for U.N. projects in Somalia next year. Stephen said no evidence has been produced yet to support the rumors of Somalia's current involvement in international terrorism, and no Western donor has expressed concern about Al-Ittihad.

Ethiopia says it crushed Al-Ittihad militarily in southwestern Somalia in late 1996 and early 1997, but it argues the movement is still a threat in terms of political influence. In 1997, state-owned Ethiopian television shot footage of Arab and Turkish fighters killed at Al-Ittihad training bases in Somalia.

Ethiopian Foreign Minister Takeda Alemu told CNN recently that his government would send troops into Somalia "should the situation require" it.

"They have been very smart, they are very intelligent, they know how to manipulate people. They have large resources with regards to funding. They have also managed to hoodwink some in the international community," he said. "I'm sad to say they have been able to take some representatives of the United Nations in Nairobi for a ride."

Ethiopia shares 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) of border with three areas that make up the former Somali state -- southern Somalia, Puntland and Somaliland. Some of Ethiopia's security concerns stem from attacks in the mid-1990s that it blamed on Islamic fundamentalists, including attempted assassinations and bombings. The fundamentalists had an eye on the Ogaden -- a vast, sparsely populated region over which Ethiopia and Somalia fought a war more than 20 years ago.