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H08644

Headlines : "War on Terror"

Summary:

Last year it was reported that Topcat marine, a U.S. based firm, had won a contract to run the Somali coastguard. Many people raised their eyebrows at the time at a deal that the Somali government looked unable to fund, and that gave normally sovereign rights to a little-known private company.

After months of preparation, with probable false flag piracy operations, oil exploration via Australian firms and rumours of Al-Qaeda like organizations in Somalia, have the U.S. Navy stepped in to take control of the Somali coast and to establish a protectorate over some of the most strategically valuable coastline in the world?

This report in the Arabic language press suggests so. However, yesterday CNN reported a denial by the U.S. Navy. Either the Somalian P.M. is simply lying, or he has signed a deal witht he U.S. ambassador to Kenya and the Navy doesn’t know about it.

[Posted By Szamko]

By Unattributed
Republished from Asharq Alawasat

If true, Navy would take control of the Somalian coast, effectively establishing a protectorate in the Horn of Africa

For the first time since US troops left Somalia in 1993 following the failure of the “Operation Code Irene” operation, the United States signed yesterday an agreement with the Somali Transitional Government under which the US naval forces (Marines) would deploy official reconnaissance and monitoring patrols of Somalia’s coasts to hunt down the pirates who have made these coasts the most dangerous maritime spot in the world.

Somali Prime Minister Muhammad Ali Gedi told “Asharq al-Awsat” by telephone from Baidoa in southern Somalia that he signed the agreement with the US ambassador in the Kenyan capital Nairobi in a step aimed at boosting trust between the US administration and his government.

Under the agreement, which Gedi briefed all his ministers of its details, the US navy will prepare and train the Somali coastguards and provide them with technical equipment to confront the repeated attacks by pirates backed by some warlords and armed militia leaders against the liners and cargo ships sailing off the Somali coasts in the Indian Ocean.

Even though the United States has been carrying out strict monitoring of the Somali coasts in cooperation with some EU countries since the beginning of 2002, it has remained unable to get close to…

[end excerpt]

Click here to read the rest of the article

Posted by Szamko
Just tries to tell the truth.

H08644

Somalia PM says U.S. navy has permission for tackling pirates

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