Terrorists finding safe havens in East Africa.Terrorists Moving From Afghan Border To Africa

WASHINGTON – There is growing evidence that battle-hardened extremists are filtering out of safe havens along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and into East Africa, bringing sophisticated terrorist tactics that include suicide attacks.
The alarming shift, according to U.S. military and counterterrorism officials, fuels concern that Somalia is increasingly on a path to become the next Afghanistan — a sanctuary where al-Qaida-linked groups could train and plan their threatened attacks against the western world.
So far, officials say the number of foreign fighters who have moved from southwest Asia and the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region to the Horn of Africa is small, perhaps two to three dozen.
But a similarly small cell of militant plotters was responsible for the devastating 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. And the cluster of militants now believed to be operating inside East Africa could pass on sophisticated training and attack techniques gleaned from seven years at war against the U.S. and allies in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. officials said.
"There is a level of activity that is troubling, disturbing," Gen. William "Kip" Ward, head of U.S. Africa Command, told The Associated Press. "When you have these vast spaces that are just not governed it provides a haven for support activities, for training to occur."
Ward added that American officials already are seeing extremist factions in East Africa sharing information and techniques.
Several military and counterterrorism officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters cautioned that the movements of the al-Qaida militants do not suggest an abandonment of the ungoverned Pakistan border region as a safe haven.
Instead, the shift is viewed by the officials more as an expansion of al-Qaida's influence, and a campaign to gather and train more recruits in a region already rife with militants.
Last month, Osama bin Laden made it clear in a newly released audiotape that al-Qaida has set its sights on Somalia, an impoverished and largely lawless country in the Horn of Africa. In the 11-minute tape released to Internet sites, bin Laden is heard urging Somalis to overthrow their new moderate Islamist president and to support their jihadist "brothers" in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine and Iraq...more..http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090428/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_terror_africa
Terrorists Moving From Afghan Border To Africa
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/04/28/ap/politics/main4973415.shtml