July 22: A notorious warlord and arms dealer is training Islamist fighters in the remote mountains of northern Somalia and setting up what local officials fear could become a new Tora Bora. Mohammed Said Atom, one of a handful of men singled out by the United Nations Security Council as violating an arms embargo on Somalia, has established bases in the Sanaag mountains straddling Puntland and Somaliland, a senior security official said.

The Al Qaeda-linked Shebab insurgent group has been mainly active in southern and central Somalia in recent years, focusing its military efforts on trying to topple the western-backed government in Mogadishu. But the July 11 bombings in Kampala claimed by the Shebab have signalled the group’s expanding reach, and activity by Atom’s men in Sanaag has stirred concern that the rebels were now poised to destablise the two breakaway states. “Atom has links with Al Qaeda and represents the Shebab in the region,” said Colonel Mohamed Jama, a senior security official from the semi-autonomous state of Puntland.

“We are receiving information that he has mobilised hundreds of Islamist militants in the villages around Sanaag Bari,” Colonel Mohamed Jama told AFP. “Our security forces are now fully prepared to launch an offensive against those terrorists who are establishing a safe haven in the region and want to disrupt our stability,” he further said.

Puntland and the self-proclaimed state of Somaliland, to the east, have been more stable than central and southern Somalia in recent years but they have been wary of late that the Shebab might seek to open up new fronts. Residents in eastern Puntland’s Galgala told AFP that at least 400 fighters were mobilised and trained recently across the region and added that the Shebab’s black flag was flying in some villages.

 sources the Asian Age

Posted by Suxufi on Jul 23 2010. Filed under English News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.