FRENCH AGENTS POSING AS JOURNALISTS NABBED IN SOMALIA

Two French security advisors posing as journalists were abducted from their hotel in Mogadishu on Tuesday by Somali gunmen, according to the Foreign Ministry and reports from the Somali capital.

A group of armed Somali men stormed into the Sahafi (Journalists') hotel in Mogadishu and kidnapped two French intelligence service officials working as security advisers for the Somali government. The two Frenchmen had been posing as journalists to disguise their identity, but the French Foreign Ministry admitted later that in reality they were intelligence officers sent on an “official mission” to provide “help in security matters to the transitional federal government of President Sheikh Sharif.”

The French Foreign Ministry did not identify the two men or specify which branch of the French government had dispatched them to Somalia. But it said in an announcement that they were in Mogadishu on "an official mission" to assist the Western-backed government of President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed in "security matters."

African Union military officials are aware of the report, a BBC correspondent said.

MILITARY ADVISORS

A senior official in Ahmed's government told Agence France-Presse, the main French news agency, that the two men had arrived in Mogadishu nine days ago, invited by the Somali Defense Ministry to train "their counterparts in Somali intelligence agencies." The former Somali government under Siad Barre had a long history of intelligence trainers mainly from the East-Block, former East Germany and even Vietnam while during times of changing tides they came from the US and Italy. Still today many of the surviving former politicians, who were jailed by the former regime, report horror stories about torture at the hands of such multiple-trained Somali interrogators.

THE ABDUCTION

The men were staying at the Sahafi Hotel International, which over the years has hosted many foreign correspondents. The hotel is situated close to Km4 Junction, a strategic road junction that is guarded by peacekeepers serving African Union Mission in Somalia, Amisom. It is a place mainly frequented by foreign visitors and government officials. In 2005, a female BBC producer was shot dead in front of the hotel. In more recent times, however, it has become the over-night stay for many of Somalia's parliamentarians and therefore is heavily guarded.

The kidnap occurred earlier in the morning at Sahafi International Hotel in South Mogadishu. A couple of vehicles, according to eyewitnesses, were parked opposite the hotel. While one van carried weapons, a pick up truck brought nearly a dozen masked men.

The gunmen apparently stormed the hotel and ordered everybody to put their hands up. In a dramatic action, the men moved into the rooms to re-emerge with two men who appeared as foreigners, according to an eyewitness.

The gunmen then forced the victims into one of the vehicles and moved towards a nearby Taleh community in Hodon district in Mogadishu. But no group has pointed out where the gunmen have taken the kidnapped men, especially after they abandoned the vehicle in a residential area.

The deputy hotel manager, Mohamed Hassan "Gafay", told news agencies that the two French abductees registered at the hotel as journalists on their arrival last week, but wouldn't reveal the names, since the hotel register had been confiscated shortly after the abduction by the Interior Minister. Other sources give their names as Mark and Denis, having the rank of Colonel and Ltd.-Colonel respectively.

The hotel manager confirmed to the Washington Post that a dozen armed men showed up Tuesday morning and, after disarming the hotel guards, searched the hotel door to door until they found their targets and bundled them off. Other observers said that the men, dressed in the uniforms of the TFG had told the guards that they had orders to arrest the two "suspicious" men. Thereby they gained direct access and knew exactly where to find the two.

“The abduction was over in a few minutes” and took place around 8am, said Stephanie Braquegais, a FRANCE 24 correspondent in Mogadishu. She said that armed men arrived in two vehicles and blocked the road leading to the hotel.

“According to the hotel staff, they disarmed the security guards before rushing directly to the two persons’ room,” she said.
She added: “The abductors left with only one vehicle, a pickup, leaving a small broken-down Toyota at the scene, which was taken away by the Somali police a few minutes later.”

"Two foreigners have been kidnapped this morning by a large group of gunmen,” Somali police spokesperson Mohamed Ali, told the AFP news agency.

FRANCE MORE OR LESS MUM

The two foreigners kidnapped on Tuesday in Mogadishu are not journalists but French agents who were invited to train Somali intelligence officers, a government official said.

"They are not journalists, the two work for the French government. They were invited by the defence ministry to do some training for their counterparts in the Somali intelligence services," the official said on condition of anonymity. "They have been in Somalia nine days," the official added, without elaborating on the pair's identity.

France has had no diplomatic representation in Mogadishu since June 1993, when a U.N.-led effort to impose peace on Somalia's warring factions led to disaster. Since then, like many of its Western counterparts, the French government has handled its diplomatic business with Somalia from the French Embassy in Nairobi, the capital of neighboring Kenya. Diplomats from the French Embassy in Nairobi didn't want to comment and France's role in providing security assistance to the forces of the Somali TFG was not widely known in Paris. The abduction took place as France celebrated its National Day with a large military parade down the Champs Elysées and a garden party at the Elysée Palace, the official residence of President Nicolas Sarkozy.

In a television interview for the occasion, Sarkozy went out of his way to praise the French military. He reminded viewers that his government has increased spending for modern military equipment, even though the manpower totals are being reduced.

"The French army is professional, competent, devoted," he said. "It does an absolutely remarkable job."

France, which has a military base in neighbouring Djibouti, is engaged in a programme to train security forces in civil war-torn Somalia.

Later the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said in a statement issued by the French MFA: "Two french advisers on official assistance to the Somali government have been kidnapped this morning in Mogadishu by armed men. They were providing assistance with security matters for the Transitional Federal Government of President Sheikh Sharif. Once this information was known, all the state services concerned are mobilized, as well as our embassy in Nairobi, relevant for Somalia."

JOURNALISTS OUTRAGED

The report that the two kidnapped men had posed as journalists was received with alarm and some puzzlement by media advocacy groups.

"This accusation, while unconfirmed, is troubling," said Robert Mahoney, deputy director of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. "Our position is that intelligence officers posing as journalists jeopardizes the security of all journalists."

In addition, any decision to masquerade as a reporter in Somalia would be perplexing, since Somalia has emerged this year as "the most dangerous country in the world for journalists, outstripping Iraq," according to the committee. Six journalists have been killed in Somalia this year, bringing the toll to 15 since 2007, the committee says.

At least six reporters have been killed in Somalia this year, four of them “apparently victims of targeted assassinations,” Navi Pillay, the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights, said last week.

The Paris-based media rights group, Reporters Without Borders, said it hoped for the men's quick release but expressed shock that they had been posing as journalists. The group said being a journalist is not a cover, it is a profession. It said their behavior endangers journalists in a region where reporting is already very dangerous.

The risks of being murdered or kidnapped for ransom have made it virtually impossible for Western journalists to operate in Somalia, where two freelancers are still being held captive nearly a year after they were abducted just outside the capital.

Amanda Lindhout, a television and print reporter from Canada, and Nigel Brennan, an Australian photographer, were abducted by Somali gunmen on Aug. 23, 2008, while travelling to a refugee camp south-west of Mogadishu. The team had stayed in the same hotel, had guards from the hotel, were kidnapped by armed men and are still being held hostage in Mogadishu, according to the Web site of Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based organization that promotes press freedom around the world. In an interview first with AFP, Lindhout and Brennen gave a horrible account under duress and pleaded for help to be released. Shortly thereafter and in a phone call last month to Canada's CTV television network, Lindhout pleaded for government assistance, saying she feared for her life and was in "a desperate situation." She and Brennan have been reported to be in poor health. The Canadian and Australian Governments are strict in their policies concerning ransom payments in hostage situations and the families can not meet the required demands. Four employees from a French NGO, abducted in November, are also still being held hostage together with their two Kenyan pilots in Central Somalia as well as a British man in the South of the country.

NEGOTIATIONS

It was not immediately clear who had taken the men, but a pro-government Islamist militia blamed dissident troops.

A militia spokesman, Abdirisak Qeylow, told Reuters "government soldiers who have mutinied" were involved in the kidnapping.
"Negotiation is under way for their release. Maybe they are demanding ransom, I don't know the exact amount. But we are doing our best for them to be released soon," he added.

Other reports from Mogadishu confirmed already started negotiations between the Somali Government and the clan-faction, which holds the to French men. Any involvement of hardline Islamist groups or family members of pirates jailed in France has for been ruled out. Neither the still defence minister of Somalia, Mohamed Abdi Gandi, who holds a French passport, nor the Deputy Defence Minister - Gen. Indha Adde - could be reached for comment.

With Islamist insurgents battling government troops on a daily basis, Mogadishu is one of the most dangerous cities in the world. Insurgent fighters control all but a few districts in the capital. At least 18,000 civilians have been killed and 1 million have lost their homes in the last two years of fighting. Since the African Union peacekeeping troops in Somalia decided to defy their mission and fight alongside the transitional government's troops against the anti-government rebels, the entire capital has turned into a bloody battlefield. (Own sources and texts from agencies as other media)

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