US diplomat in security talks

The first US diplomat to visit Mogadishu since the UN pullout of 1995 has held talks with members of the Somali Transitional National Government (TNG), a senior TNG official told IRIN on Thursday.

Glenn Warren, a political officer for Somali affairs at the US embassy in Nairobi, arrived in Mogadishu on Wednesday, the TNG information minister Zakariya Mahmud Haji confirmed. "He had a working lunch [on Thursday] with the deputy prime minister, Usman Jama, and other senior government officials," Zakariya said. The US diplomat also met the National Task Force for Security and Anti-Terrorism for discussions on American concerns about the possibility of "suspected terrorists on Somali territory", according to the Somali official.

Zakariya said the TNG had assured Warren of its determination "to give the US government full cooperation in the fight against terrorism".

In another development, the TNG arrested nine men "of Iraqi or Kurdish nationality" on Tuesday, the information minister told IRIN. "They were arrested because we are not sure who they are. They are being interrogated at the HQ of the Criminal Investigations Department, which will issue a statement once the interrogations are over." He said the nine had not been charged with any crimes yet, and would be released if the investigations did not uncover any wrongdoings.

Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has denied reports that Somalia will be the next target of American attacks on countries suspected of harbouring terrorists, the BBC reported on Thursday. Rumsfeld was reacting to a claim by an unnamed German official to the effect that it was not a question of "if" Somalia would be attacked, but of "when and how", the BBC said.