Horn of African Countries of "Special Interest" or terrrorists

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East Africa: Smuggled Immigrants Raise U.S. Terrorism Fears

The East African (Nairobi)

14 July 2008
Posted to the web 14 July 2008

Kevin J. Kelley


Concern about a terrorist threat to the United States is growing among American intelligence officials due to a recent upsurge in the number of East Africans who have been caught trying to enter the US illegally.

Citing an "internal government assessment" that it had obtained, the Associated Press reported last week that the US is focusing new attention on networks that smuggle people from Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan.


These four countries are among 35 confidentially listed by the US Department of Homeland Security as being of "special interest" due to the alleged presence of terrorists in their territories.

A total of 159 citizens of the four East African countries have been captured in the past several months as they tried to enter the US without permission. That compares to 125 for all of last year and a total of 22 in 2003.

Of the 159 caught this year, 138 came from Eritrea, the AP reported.

The United States has a particularly thorny relationship with Eritrea, which Washington accuses of supporting an Islamist force inside Somalia that the US also labels as a terrorist organisation. A senior State Department official warned last year that the US may designate Eritrea as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Djibouti, on the other hand, is among the United States' closest allies in Africa. The tiny country strategically situated on the Horn hosts a US military base that conducts counter-terrorism operations throughout the sub-region.

American officials acknowledge that most of the East Africans trying to enter the US illegally have no ties to terrorism and are motivated by hopes of achieving a better life.

The four East African countries listed as of "special interest" to US security agencies are part of a group made up mainly of majority-Muslim states.

The list published in a 2006 essay by Walter Ewing, a researcher at the US-based Immigration Policy Centre, includes several countries friendly to Washington such as Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Thailand. Mauritania is the only other black African country on the list.

Four of the "special interest" countries - Sudan, Iran, North Korea and Syria - also appear on a five-nation US list of "state sponsors of terrorism." Cuba, the other country so designated by the State Department, does not appear on the "special interest" list.

Intensified worries about aliens entering the US from East African "special interest" countries stem from a court case involving two Ghanians who specialised in smuggling East Africans into the United States.

One of the two men, Sampson Lovelace Boateng (known as Pastor), recently pleaded guilty in federal court in Washington to charges that he recruited East Africans who paid for his assistance in attempting to enter the US.

US authorities charged that Mr Boateng, along with alleged co-conspirator Mohammed Kamel Ibrahim, provided the East Africans with phony Mexican visas that enabled them to travel from Africa to South America and Central America en route to the United States.

The pair also arranged to bribe African officials to facilitate their clients' efforts to reach the United States, the US indictment charges.

After housing the East Africans for several days or weeks in Mexico City, Mr Boateng and Mr Ibrahim smuggled the aliens into the US by various means, including stowing them for more than 12 hours in the luggage compartments of coaches travelling north to the US border.

Particularly alarming to US officials is the apparent success the smugglers enjoyed in bringing citizens of "special interest" countries into the United States.

"Getting into US is no problem at all," Mr Ibrahim boasted in an e-mail message intercepted by US authorities. "That's what I do best."

Mr Ibrahim and Mr Boateng were arrested last year. Their activities are said to have accounted for most of the East Africans who entered the US illegally in the past couple of years.

"Criminal smuggling organisations earn millions of dollars through the ruthless exploitation of illegal aliens," Julie L. Myers, a security official for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, told the Associated Press.

Relevant Links

East Africa
North Africa
Conflict, Peace and Security
Djibouti
Eritrea
Migration
Somalia
Sudan
International Terrorism
United States, Canada and Africa



"By attacking these organised criminal networks in a comprehensive way, we are shutting down vulnerabilities in our country and in theirs."