December 18 , 2006

Iran Searching for Uranium in Somalia?

The irrepressible Daveed Gartenstein-Ross has an eye-opening exclusive today at PajamasMedia.com. Over the past few months, Daveed has been at the forefront of covering the continuing offensive by the radical Islamic Courts Union, or ICU, in Somalia (watch my recent 700 Club report on the topic here).

In short, the ICU, which is linked to al-Qaeda, is in the process of consolidating power and enforcing Sharia law in Somalia, a country which has long been wracked by chaos and extremism (witness the infamous Black Hawk Down incident of 1993). But there's an even more disturbing wrinkle.The Daily Telegraph reported last month that Iran had been supplying weapons to the ICU in order to obtain uranium in return (another case of you-scratch-my-prayer-rug and I'll-scratch-yours cooperation between nominally rival Shiite and Sunni factions).

Now Daveed and Pajamas Media have obtained a yet-to-be-released U.N. report providing conclusive proof that Iran is doing just that. Here's more, from Daveed:

Iran is secretly searching for uranium in war-torn Somalia, according to a confidential United Nations report obtained by Pajamas Media.

The report, which has yet to be made public, is available here at Pajamas. Download file / PDF 2 Megabytes.

The report notes that two Iranians were “engaged on matters linked to the exploration of Uranium in exchange for arms” in Dusamareb, Somalia. The arms would be given to the Islamic Courts Union (the ICU), a Taliban-like movement that controls much of Somalia.

The U.N. report spends little time on this surprising development, perhaps because the report’s mandate is limited to monitoring violations of Somalia’s arms embargo.

“We are extremely concerned about that,” a military intelligence officer told Pajamas Media. This concern stems from the fact that the ICU has every incentive to cooperate with Iran: the Islamic group would be unable to mine and market the uranium on its own, and the ICU is always hungry for weapons for its war against Somalia’s transitional federal government (TFG).

Dusamareb is known to be rich in uranium. Abdiweli Ali, an assistant professor of economics at Niagara University and a supporter of Somalia’s transitional federal government (TFG), is originally from Dusamareb, where he received his primary school education. He reports that in the Galgadud region, where Dusamareb is located, uranium exploration has occurred since the 1940s. This exploration was put on hiatus after the fall of president Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 put the country under the rule of rival warlords.

The uranium prospecting that Iranians are undertaking in Somalia creates problems for U.S. efforts to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. It would provide them with a virtually untraceable source of uranium ore that could be made into weapons.

Read Daveed's entire report to learn more about Iran's involvement in Somalia, as well as the ICU's links to Al-Qaeda. It seems that with each passing day, new information emerges that further discredits calls for dialogue with the Iranian regime from foreign policy "realists." (that means you, James Baker).