Aug. 7 (Bloomberg) — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said a suicide plot in Australia allegedly linked to Somali militants is a reminder of the global threat posed by terrorists using Somalia as a training ground.

Five people were charged this week with planning to attack an army barracks in western Sydney with automatic weapons in a plot prosecutors say is linked to the Somali Islamist militia al-Shabaab.

“This week in Australia we have been reminded that there are those who would use Somalia as a training ground for attacks around the world,” Clinton told reporters in Kenya after meeting with Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. Al-Shabaab sees Somalia as a “future haven for global terrorism,” she said yesterday.

The Islamist militia is fighting to oust the United Nations-backed Somali government and controls much of southern Somalia. The group was designated a terrorist organization last year by the U.S., which accuses it of providing logistical support for al-Qaeda.

“If al-Shabaab were to obtain a haven in Somalia, which could then attract al-Qaeda and other terrorist actors, it would be a threat to the United States,” Clinton said, according to a State Department transcript.

Australian police say the five men, aged between 22 and 33 and mostly of Somali and Lebanese descent, planned to kill as many soldiers as possible at the Holsworthy Barracks, one of the biggest military camps in the country.

Civil War

Some of the suspects may also have been planning to travel to Somalia to take part in hostilities, according to police. The Horn of Africa nation is in its 18th year of civil war.

The men are charged with preparing an act of terrorism and face court again on Oct. 26.

Al-Shabaab denied any connection to the suicide plot, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported today, citing a spokesman for the militia.

“We have heard that Australia has arrested Somali men and suspect them of connections with our group,” the ABC cited Sheik Ali Mohamoud Rage as saying. “But I can tell you that the Shabaab doesn’t have” anybody in Australia. The broadcaster didn’t say where Rage made his comments.

The militia is a fractured movement and Rage is unlikely to speak for all members of the group, the broadcaster said, citing the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.

Jakarta Link

Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda suggested al- Shabaab may be linked with the Southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah, which is blamed for a six-year bombing campaign in Indonesia that left about 280 people dead. Suicide attacks on two luxury hotels in Jakarta last month killed nine people, including three Australians and the two attackers.

“I believe that they are not directly connected, but they might be connected at the top,” the Sydney Morning Herald cited Wirajuda as saying.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said earlier this week there was no suggestion the army barracks plot and the Jakarta bombings were connected.

While al-Shabaab has focused its activities within the Horn of Africa nation, terrorism analysts say its aspirations may be expanding to recruit people from overseas.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation says as many as 17 Somali-Americans have disappeared from Minneapolis in the past two years and one became a suicide bomber in Somalia.

The FBI says it is concerned citizens may receive weapons and terrorism training there and return to America to plot attacks.

Source: Bloomberg

Photo: By Ed Johnson

To contact the reporter on this story: Ed Johnson in Sydney at .

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