Somalia awash in illegal arms, much of it from Eritrea — UN

Eritrea has secretly supplied “huge quantities of arms” to a Somali insurgent group with alleged ties to Al Qaeda in violation of an international arms embargo and despite the deployment of African peacekeepers, UN arms experts have concluded. “Somalia is awash with arms,” the experts said in a report to the UN Security Council obtained by the Associated Press on Thursday. Surface-to-air missiles, suicide belts and explosives with timers and detonators are among the arms held by the Islamic insurgents, known as the Shabab, the report said. The Monitoring Group on Somalia was appointed by the UN Security Council to report on violations of the arms embargo on Somalia established in 1992. That was when the last effective government in the Horn of Africa nation collapsed and the country descended into civil war. The report determined Somalia has more arms now than at anytime since the civil war broke out in 1991.