Al-Ittihad's US assets frozen

The US assets of the Somali based Islamic group Al-Ittihad al-Islami (AIAI) were ordered frozen on Monday by US President George Bush on the suspicion that the group is linked to terrorist activities, Agence France Presse (AFP) said on Monday. Al Ittihad is one on a list of organisations whose assets have been targeted by the US as a consequence of the terrorist attacks in the US on 11 September. Regional analysts told AFP that they were unaware of any direct link between AIAI and either Osama bin Laden or the Al-Qa'idah group, which he allegedly heads and which is suspected of involvement in the attacks in Washington and New York. Little is known about the fundamentalist group whose name means Islamic Union and was set up in the region early 1990s, with the aim of establishing a hardline Islamic state in Somalia.

Al-Ittihad is widely credited with establishing Islamic Courts in the capital Mogadishu in recent years but is said to have handed over the running of the courts to the Transitional National Government (TNG), AFP said. Many of its militiamen are now believed to have been integrated into the TNG's police forces. Regional analysts said the organisation is believed to have maintained training camps at Ras Kamboni in southern Somalia and Las Quoay in northeastern Somalia. Little substantial is known about the group,
and it would be difficult to track its financial assets, one Somali source
said.