(FinalCall.com) --Reconnaissance flights have increased over Somalia, Bush administration officials announced Jan. 3, saying the U.S. was looking for signs that Saudi-exile Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda network might have set up a base in the African country.

Warships�either from the United States or its allies�were cruising the Somali coast at Final Call press time, ready to board cargo vessels suspected of containing terrorists heading from Asia to Africa. Yemen is also on alert.

"We�ve always made clear that we felt that Somalia and the situation that existed there made it a potential haven for terrorists," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher acknowledged Jan. 3.

"This pretext of the war on terrorism is allowing the U.S. to exercise a kind of imperialistic foreign policy for which it felt restrained by negative international reaction," commented Chicago-based columnist Salim Muwakkil. The pattern seems to be use of overwhelming force on defenseless, or at least offense less, opponents, he said. Anything goes when the government wages a war against neither a country nor organized entity, the writer added. "There can be no surrender, because terrorism is an abstract opponent and abstractions cannot say �I surrender.� So, war goes on wherever the country says it does. That�s a very dangerous framework," Mr. Muwakkil said.

"If there is some evidence that bin Laden is holed-up there, or has escaped to Somalia, I think that the U.S. is more than justified in doing some surgical maneuver to get him," Mel Foote, president of the U.S. Constituency for Africa advocacy group, told The Final Call from his Washington office. "But, I don�t think they should do an indiscriminate bombing of Somali people. There is no climate of anti-America fervor in Somalia. So, I would hate for the U.S. to go in with this assumption, and take out large segments of the Somali population too," he said.

Elombe Brath, of the New York-based Patrice Lumumba Coalition argues that U.S. policy is steeped in "the geo-political strategic location of the country of Somalia, sitting on the Suez Canal. The U.S. ally is the landlocked neighbor of Somalia, Ethiopia, so the U.S. must control the entrance to the canal for its land-locked ally. It is also a strategic area, which gives the U.S. an ability to have a military presence in the southern African region." Blacks need to pressure Congress to change policy toward Africa, he said.

A Somali group, Al-Itihaad Al-Islamiya, also known as, "Islamic Unity," is on the U.S. list of suspected terrorist groups. The group�s goal, according to the State Department, is to create an Islamic state in Somalia. U.S. officials further contend that the group has links to Mr. bin Laden and the Al Qaeda network and have made contact with Somali officials. The U.S. has yet to offer evidence of Al Qaeda activity inside Somalia.

After dislodging the Taliban in Afghanistan, policymakers in Washington are debating what to do about suspected terrorist cells in the Horn of Africa, in particulaly, in Somalia.

The U.S. is building a coalition of Ethiopian and British forces, and its apparent Somali target would be Al Itahaad, whose assets were frozen by the U.S. in September.

Why is Somalia widely perceived as accused terrorist Osama bin Laden�s potential place of refuge, home for a new Al Qaeda base and a potential target for the U.S.-led "war on terrorism?" The country is fragmented with no national government. Its new Transitional National Government is one of several groups claiming the authority to govern, and with its competing clan militias, Somalia may not be the safest place for Mr. bin Laden or his alleged terror network.

Washington is believed to be interested in Somalia for three main reasons: The first has to do with U.S. military intervention in 1993, which ended in humiliation, with corpses of Special Forces soldiers dragged through the streets. The failure of the military operation has fueled wariness among policymakers when it comes to deploying U.S. troops abroad and a desire for revenge among others in the military establishment.

Secondly, the White House executive order that froze terrorist assets Nov. 7 named several Somali individuals and firms. Further action against Somalia could be seen as President Bush making good on his promise to make his war a global operation, not just a fight with the Taliban. The November executive order closing Al Barakaat shut down money exchange offices on four continents. Closure of the money network left most Somalis outside the country with no means of sending money home. Some believe the closure would not have occurred if Western Union operated in Somalia.

The third reason for U.S. interest concerns Ethiopia and the desire to use Prime Minister Meles Zenawi as the U.S. agent in the region. The Zenawi government also wants to see the fledging government in Mogadishu, which is seen as largely lslamist, replaced by another faction, and strengthen its hand in the region.

Since Sept. 11, Ethiopia has focused on Somalia and claims that the Transitional National Government is closely linked to Al Itahaad. Ethiopia backs the Somali Reconciliation and Reconstruction Council, one of whose leaders, Hussein Mohamed Farah Aideed, only three years ago was an ally of Al Itahaad.

Ethiopia blames Al Itahaad for bombings in Dire Dawa and Addis Ababa and for the attempted July 1995 assassination of Transport Minister Abdul Majeed Hussein, who is now ambassador to the United Nations. By becoming Washington�s key ally in the region, Ethiopia hopes to write the agenda for regional action against international terrorism and pursue its own political objectives.

Its strategy includes getting U.S. help to destroy Al Itahaad. Ethiopia has already given the U.S. detailed accounts of Somalia�s Transitional National Government�s alleged meetings with Al Qaeda representatives. Ethiopia has charged some members of Somalia�s National Assembly are also Al Itahaad officials.

Ethiopia further claims that a Sept. 14 meeting attended by Al ltahaad officials and the Transitional National Government was addressed by Sheikh Abdurahman Hamad of Afghanistan. Ethiopia says a 10-member committee was set up to investigate operational base options in Somalia should the U.S. attack Afghanistan. The Transitional National Government is backed by the United Nations while Ethiopia, backed by the U.S., supports the Somali Reconciliation and Reconstruction Council. Each side is interested in direct or indirect post Sept. 11 U.S. support to help discredit or eliminate the other.

Ethiopia wants to see the Transitional National Government eliminated and opposes extension of the mandate for UN Political Office for Somalia, which provides an international safety net for the Transitional National Government. The UN Political Office for Somalia, like the rest of the world, also does not recognize the self-proclaimed Republic of Somaliland. The region declared independence from the rest of Somalia in 1991 and is well disposed toward Ethiopia.

Although Ethiopia wants to serve as the "Pakistan" of the Horn region and aid U.S. invasion or activity, it realizes that large-scale, long-term military activity requires help with supplies and strengthening military morale.

Washington policy makers have consulted experts and debated the value of U.S. or Ethiopian military intervention. Some U.S. military officials are already assessing the situation on the ground. Somalia would likely be the target of Ethiopian incursions�which would be U.S.-backed, but not U.S. led. Somalia also offers very few clear military targets.

With substantial inter-African political intrigue at work�which includes concerns about Sudan and potential problems for Kenya�some Washington officials fear the U.S. government depends too heavily on Ethiopia for intelligence in the region. The U.S. already helps Ethiopia with training, logistics and growing political support. Washington is weighing Special Operations options, presumably including the murder of selected individuals. It is also feared that giving Ethiopian forces a free hand would fuel instability well beyond Somalia�s borders.

President Daniel Arap Moi has complained that Kenya, which neighbors both states, would suffer from increased Ethiopian intervention in Somalia. Kenya is concerned about the possibility of more refugees and the impact of Somali nationals living in Kenya.

The current surveillance flights are coming from Oman, looking for any unusual activity that might indicate escaping Al-Qaeda leaders are trying to make their way to Somalia. One of the aircrafts used, the P-3, is equipped with optical sensors and cameras that survey broad areas of ocean for the monitoring of unusual water traffic. According to reports, the U.S. Navy has a list of more than 20 ships it believes are potentially tied to Mr. bin Laden. Another aircraft, the EP-3, is used to gather electronic intelligence and monitors communications in the region.

There are at least six nations considered by America as possible havens for Mr. bin Laden�Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Yemen, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Mel Foote lived in Somalia for three years while director for Africare and later returned with a U.S. congressional contingent during the 1990 civil war. The group had hoped to bring peace to that segment of the Horn of Africa. With no lucrative mineral resource to speak of, the flat-terrain of Somalia serves more of a strategic location than anything else, yet still serves big oil interests, according to Mr. Foote.

"Somalia represents another strategic point where it concerns these (oil) shipping routes," he explained.

There have been rumors of oil discovery in Barowe, known as Somaliland during British colonial rule, added Mr. Foote, who couldn�t say whether the rumor was true or false.

Somalia descended into chaos largely due to benign neglect on the part of the United States, that tried to help stop the civil war and help feed people, but degenerated into chasing warlords and subsequent death of U.S. soldiers, Mr. Foote argues.

"Our reaction to that was to pull out of the area completely-lock, stock and barrel-letting the people fend for themselves. I�m not sure in this new world order that is the way you behave�to get mad and then ignore�but what that did was create an opportunity for anyone to come in, including terrorist cells," he noted.

"Somalia is being targeted primarily on the prodding of the minority regime of Ethiopia, mostly for its own reasons," said Professor Asgede Hagos in a recent editorial in USAfrica, a newspaper published in Houston. "Since soon after the Sept. 11, attack, the regime has been trying to sell Washington on the idea that neighboring Somalia is a terrorist haven," he continued. The professor said the U.S. must not let herself be used in order to win a larger, protracted war. "The new game in Somalia is to call your enemy a terrorist in the hope America will destroy him for you," he wrote.

"The American government does not seem to be to concerned about what happens in Africa. Black Americans must ask their government to help the African governments in conflict such as Somalia," added Saeed Fahia, executive director of the Confederation of Somali Communities in Minnesota. "It would be helpful if Blacks here learned more about what is happening in Somalian culture, particularly the clan issue. Unlike Somalians, Blacks in America have influence with their Congress," he said.

Black people worldwide should be concerned about the war on terror and possibility of U.S. action against Somalia, said Dr. Conrad Worrill, of the National Black United Front. "Africa is still suffering from the hands of foreign intervention into the affairs of Africa, and the African world community�s challenge is to acquire enough political and economic power in the world to stop this practice of foreign intervention by the former slave trading nations,"
said Dr. Worrill. Hopefully the African Union, and eventually a United States of Africa, will provide the unity and power to stop imposition in African affairs, he said.