Bartamaha (Nairobi):- Somalia is considering allowing a private security company to train a 1,000-man antipiracy force in the capital of Mogadishu, a Somali official said Friday. It would be the second such unit funded by an unidentified country — a project that has raised eyebrows in Washington and in the U.N.

The security company, Saracen International, is already training a different 1,000-man force in Somalia’s northern region of Puntland. The project is being funded by an unknown Muslim country that those involved in the project — including and former U.S. ambassador and a former CIA officer — will not name.

Somali Ambassador Mohamed Ali Nur told The Associated Press the Mogadishu force would hit the pirates on land, where their havens are out of reach of a multinational naval armada which has tried to protect international shipping.

The Somali government will decide in the next three weeks whether to have Saracen train the antipiracy force in Mogadishu, Nur said. Another program to train up to 300 men for the presidential guard is also being considered.

If approved, that could mean up to 2,400 men would be trained by Saracen International. The mystery donor has also promised to pay the men and equip them with everything except arms. The total cost of the project is unclear. A European Union-led program to reform the Somali army is training and paying for 2,000 men at a cost of around $13.2 million, indicating that at such a level of expenditure, the anonymous donor nation has deep pockets.

The donor insists on keeping its identity secret, citing concerns over terrorism, according to a presentation about the company given to Nairobi-based diplomats on Friday and provided to AP.

Somali pirates have never been known to retaliate against nations that have sent warships to patrol the Somali coast, but the al-Qaida-linked Somali insurgency launched suicide bombings in Uganda that killed 76 people in July. Uganda is a main contributor to an African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia.

The mystery donor is paying for the services of a former American ambassador for war crimes, Pierre Prosper, and a former CIA deputy chief of station, Michael Shanklin. On Friday, Prosper and two other Americans, former army officer Michael Newton and lawyer Robert O’Brien, gave a presentation to the international community about the proposed projects.

But diplomats said the presentation raised more questions than it answered. They said they didn’t know how the force would be deployed, how it would be integrated with current efforts to reform the security forces or how it would work with international antipiracy navies. The diplomats did not want to be identified because they are not authorized to appear in the press.

Nur said he did not know how long the donor country would be willing to pay the salaries of the recruits. Regular payments are vital to ensure recruits do not desert to the insurgency, a problem that has dogged previous programs.

Nur said the Saracen-trained antipiracy forces would go after pirates “on land.”

In a seemingly related development, a plane that landed in the northern Somali town of Hargeisa on Friday was impounded. The minister of information in the breakaway region of Somaliland, Abdillahi Jama Osman, said the plane was carrying mine-detecting equipment and military uniforms. Six Russians and two South Africans were on board, he said.

The flight originated in South Africa, stopped in Uganda — where Saracen International is based — and was due to go to Bosasso, the capital of Puntland. The plane had to land in Hargeisa because of mechanical problems, Ahmed said.

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Source:- AP.

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