The United States believes that Somali Islamists who had, until recently, been running parts of the country, are regrouping in Saudi Arabia and Eritrea, the US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs said in an interview with the Financial Times on Thursday.Jendayi Frazer also told the business daily that it was going to be a while before it could be confirmed who had survived the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in December, and the subsequent US air strikes in the country, and who had not. “It is going to take some time for the fog of war to clear up and we have an ability to see who is still operating and how they are operating,” she was quoted as saying by the FT.
Speaking from Addis Ababa, she did say, however, that she was “very concerned” that elements of the defeated Islamists were “trying to reconstitute themselves either out of Saudi Arabia or Eritrea.” “We have to engage with the Saudi government and their services to try to prevent that from happening as well as engage regionally.”