U.S. says terrorists may be using east Africa
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - U.S. Central Command chief General John Abizaid said Wednesday east Africa could still be a transit and operational zone for terrorists, and urged states in the region to combat the threat.
Abizaid was in Addis Ababa for a meeting of 11 east African countries at which they agreed to set up a U.S.-backed system for preventing and dealing with terror attacks and other disasters.
"There is a terrorist threat in the region, considering what has happened in Kenya in the past," he told a news conference in the Ethiopian capital.
"Clearly the Horn and East Africa regions could be a transit and operational zone for terrorists."
Kenya has suffered two attacks which the United States believes are linked to the militant al Qaeda network. In 1998 the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi was bombed, killing more than 200 people. Last November, at least 16 people were killed when suicide bombers attacked a Mombasa hotel.
The region is seen as highly susceptible to terrorist groups, who take advantage of porous borders and a lack of tight central control.
"With a lot of multilateral and bilateral cooperation between the states in the region, we can reduce the threat of terrorism," said Abizaid, who took over as Central Command chief this month.
The 11 countries at the meeting were Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Seychelles, Tanzania and Uganda.
The two-day "Golden Spear" symposium, an annual meeting to discuss disaster prevention, was attended by ministers and senior military representatives.
The chair of the meeting, Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin, said the new security mechanism would include an early-warning system for dealing with terror threats and natural and man-made disasters.
"We have agreed to set up a regional mechanism to enhance security and protect development gains in the region," he said, without elaborating on how this would work.
He said a panel of experts would meet in September to finalize its structure.
07/30/03 16:00 ET
