Dhows and donkeys used to move weapons

A UN report has concluded that Somalia is an "excellent" location for terrorist activities and says neighbouring countries have a "key role" to play in preventing illegal arms shipments to the country.

“These countries all regard the internal security situation in Somalia as a current threat to their national security,” said a fact-finding report to the Security Council, issued on Thursday.

It recommended that in the short-term, the effectiveness of a 1992 international arms embargo against Somalia "can be enhanced through direct intervention with the states neighbouring Somalia".

The report gave some details of the embargo's violations. "Individuals may bring small numbers of weapons – perhaps just one weapon or up to five or six – along with them when returning to Somalia, often on board dhows that move goods and people through the local seaways to ports all along the coast of Somalia,” it said.

It also said donkeys were used to transport weapons and other goods “such as endangered wildlife species, drugs and ivory".

As a “failed state” which has not had a functioning central government since 1991, Somalia is appealing for hard-to-trace financial transactions and transhipments of goods and personnel, the report noted.

“Once a payment for arms consignment has been routed through a remittance company, it becomes extremely difficult to trace,” it said.

“Though Somalia is not a particularly attractive site for a fixed base of operations for al-Qaida, or for that matter any other transnational terrorist network, it remains an excellent location for short-term transhipment and transit operations by all sorts of criminal and terrorist groups,” the report added.

It recommended that a UN panel of experts should be set up in the Kenyan capital Nairobi to strengthen and monitor the arms embargo.