Somalis hope five arrests will appease the US

Somali police say they have arrested four Iraqi Kurds and a Palestinian suspected of links to al-Qaida. The hope of the Somalis is obviously to do something to avert widely-rumoured American strikes.

The men were reported to have been detained in the capital, Mogadishu, by a hastily formed anti-terrorist unit - which Washington says may itself contain terrorists. The police chief, Colonel Abdi Hassan Awale, said yesterday that the men were arrested three days ago, after entering Somalia without permission.

"We have arrested them because we do not know who they are," he said.

The anti-terrorist unit was formed last week after Pentagon officials made claims about al-Qaida's presence in Somalia. On Thursday, its members were inspected by a Nairobi-based diplomat, Glenn Warren, the first US official to visit Mogadishu since 1995.

President Abdiquassim Salad Hassan denied there were terrorist organisations in Somalia, but said the unit was a sign of his government's commitment to fighting terrorism alongside America. "We are very willing to show them every corner of the country," he said.

As Mr Hassan controls only about half of Mogadishu - warlords run the rest of the country - analysts have questioned how effective his unit can be.

One of the five men it has arrested approached international journalists in Mogadishu last month appealing for help.

He said he was a refugee who had fled Iraq for political reasons, but had been picked up by authorities in Dubai and deported to Somalia.

The five had been living in Mogadishu for about a year, according to news agency reports quoting Ali Jama, owner of a restaurant where they often ate. Mr Jama said one of them was a dentist.

General Richard Myers, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, said yesterday there were "strong indications of some ties in Somalia to al-Qaida". He refused to confirm whether the east African country would be a target for strikes: "I'm not saying it is and I'm not saying it isn't. We are doing the kind of planning required, but I'm not going to get into that."

Speculation about US plans has increased since the German defence minister, Rudolf Scharping, said on Wednesday that Somalia would definitely be a target in the war on terror.

The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, dismissed the claims as "flat wrong". Mr Scharping, notorious for his gaffes, was forced to backtrack in an interview with yesterday's Bild newspaper.

"Together we must defend ourselves against the threat of terror, on many levels, in many places... but military plans to attack Somalia do not exist," he said.

The UN refugee agency said yesterday there were many refugees in Mogadishu from countries including Iraq and Ethiopia. They are often deported to Somalia from Gulf states, because Somalia has no functioning immigration authority.