officials deny that Washington pressured Ban to support lifting the arms embargo against the Somali government. It is not the first time that a secretary-general’s reports on various issues have been amended before publication in response to complaints from member states. The Security Council imposed it in 1992 to cut the flow of arms to feuding warlords, who a year earlier had ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and plunged Somalia into civil war.ĭiplomatic sources said Ban’s recommendation to support an end to the embargo did not appear in earlier drafts of his report but was added later on. It is a position that has the strong backing of the United States, which is pushing for an end to the 21-year-old U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said the 15-nation council should consider lifting the arms embargo to help rebuild Somalia’s security forces and consolidate military gains against the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militants. “It certainly emphasizes the point that Somalia is a country awash with arms and still very fragile,” the diplomat said. “Why are Iranian and North Korean small arms finding their way into Somalia from Libya? Do they date from before the arms embargoes (against North Korea and Iran)? How did they get there from Libya?” a council diplomat asked. Diplomats who follow the issue said the arms were apparently recovered by the peacekeepers and raised important questions. The monitors found Iranian and North Korean-made weapons that came to Somalia via Libya at a base of the U.N.-backed African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia. mission did not have an immediate comment.
Security Council’s Panel of Experts on Iran, which monitors compliance with the Iran sanctions regime, including the arms embargo on Tehran, is also looking at Yemen and evidence of Iranian arms shipments across Africa, council diplomats told Reuters. Yemen is proving to be crucial for arming al Shabaab, the monitors’ reporting shows, because it is feeding arms into northern Somalia and because it has become a playing field for Iranian interests in Somalia and elsewhere. monitors favor a gradual easing of the arms embargo rather lifting it as the Americans and the Somali government advocate, the diplomats said. The monitors were scheduled to informally brief Security Council members on Friday but the meeting was canceled due to a blizzard, diplomats said. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters in Washington. “Given Iran’s track record, both with regard to support for terror and with regard to proliferation, it would obviously not surprise us at all if they were now trying to make common cause with al Shabaab,” U.S. Other weapons supplied included PKM machine guns, said the group’s monthly report for January. Several other council diplomats confirmed his remarks. “In Galguduud (central Somalia), Shabaab received arms, including IED (improvised explosive device) components,” a Security Council diplomat said, referring to one of the Somalia/Eritrea Monitoring Group’s most recent confidential reports. Yemen is just across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia’s northern coast, making it easy to move all kinds of goods – legal and illegal – from the Middle East into Somaliland and Puntland.
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