US winning war on terror in lawless Somalia - envoy

The United States, along with Kenya and Ethiopia, have "severely disrupted" terrorist activities in anarchic Somalia since operations began there at the New Year, the American ambassador to Kenya said Thursday. Nine months after it sent fighter jets to bombard parts of the Horn of Africa country and backed an Ethiopian assault on the capital and elsewhere, the US said it was pleased with progress in Somalia. "Terrorists can no longer feel safe thinking Somalia is a safe haven. We have severely disrupted al-Qaeda's East Africa network," said Michael Ranneberger, Washington's envoy to the mission in Kenya, which also covers Somalia. The US backed the Somali transitional government, supported by Ethiopia, in ousting the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) which ruled much of Somalia for the last half of 2006 and is believed to have ties to al-Qaeda. Meanwhile, Ranneberger said that a recently concluded, 45-day reconciliation conference seen as the last best chance to unite Somalia's warring parties had seen positive results. He said steps were taken to begin redrafting the transitional charter to allow for appointed ministers, which he said would open the door to power sharing in the bitterly divided, clan-based society. The conference, which was criticized for excluding key opposition members who are based in Eritrea and have vowed to wage war on the Ethiopian troops, also paved the way for elections in 2009. As for the opposition, which has said it would not participate in any reconciliation process until Ethiopia pulls out, Ranneberger said members were slowly beginning to trickle back and have expressed interest in joining. Ranneberger said insecurity in the capital Mogadishu which has killed over a thousand people since January was not a "downward spiral", despite the ongoing bloodletting. "Extremists are attempting to launch a full-scale insurgency that would destroy Somalia. But that is not the case now. The national reconciliation conference is drawing in more Somalis and insurgents are increasingly marginalized," he said. Somalia descended into anarchy after the 1991 toppling of dictator Mohammed Siad Barre by warlords who carved the country up into fiefdoms. dpa tg ds