Kenya urged to lift flight ban

Somalia's Transitional National Government (TNG) has urged the Kenyan government to reconsider its ban on flights to the Horn of Africa country, imposed because of security fears. TNG Information Minister Abdirahman Ibbi told IRIN on Monday that President Abdiqassim Salad Hassan appealed to the Kenyans "to reconsider the flight ban and reopen the airspace". "There is no danger of terror attacks from Somalis or from Somalia," he stressed. Kenya imposed the ban over the weekend after the US warned of a possible imminent attack on its embassy in Nairobi. Last month, Britain stopped all commercial flights to Kenya. Angry local politicians, the private sector and the media have blamed Kenya's ban on flights to Somalia on intense pressure from the US government. "We must stand up to both the Americans and the British," the local media quoted MP Paul Muite as saying. "Kenya is not the target of terrorism and has only been an innocent victim. It is their interests that have made us targets and they should not turn their backs on us as they have arrogantly done." Last week, US ambassador Johnnie Carson said Kenya had not done enough to track down terrorist suspects. "The problem we see here, quite honestly, is that we believe there are al-Qaeda terrorists in Kenya and some of them are Kenyan citizens," Carson told Nation TV. Kenyan Foreign Minister Kalonzo Musyoka said the government had decided to halt flights to and from Somalia as part of its efforts to tighten security in the country. "We are studying the whole thing," he said. "The government is taking security very seriously. When it comes to security, we opt not to talk much but to swing into full action. That is why we have taken the measure to halt the flights to and from Mogadishu." A spokesperson in the Office of the President told IRIN that Chris Murungaru, the minister in charge of internal security, had travelled to the US for consultations on the issue.