September 18, 2009
Somali suicide bombers used UN vehicles, UN contractors funding Al-Shabaab
Rahm at Terror Free Somalia informs us that two vehicles used by Somali suicide bombers to attack African Union peacekeepers this week were UN vehicles.
He also points us to an article in the Wall Street Journal about an investigation of Somali UN contractors who are suspected of diverting aid funds to Al-Shabaab terrorists:
A United Nations group is investigating whether three Somali contractors it uses to ship food aid to people in the war-ravaged country are misappropriating aid and providing financial assistance to insurgent groups, according to U.N. officials...A February U.N. internal report, written by U.N. officials and approved by several of its agencies, including the WFP, said the food-distribution system in Somalia posed "considerable risk to the reputation and effectiveness of the organization," according to a copy reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The WFP declined to comment on the report.
The WFP says its operation in Somalia, one of the agency's largest, reaches 3.5 million people. Officials from the U.N., African Union and Somali government say they are increasingly concerned about the dependability of some of the contractors used by the WFP, which handed out $35 million in food-aid distribution contracts in Somalia last year. It now uses 29 contractors.
The UN investigating itself. That usually works out well.
