AL-QAEDA, the prime suspect in the investigation into the terror attacks, has had an interest and influence in the Horn of Africa since December 1991 when Osama Bin Laden took refuge in Sudan, to the north of Kenya.

From there Bin Laden built links with the Islamic Jihad Movement of Eritrea and other jihadi organisations based in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. They included the Eritrea Kinama Movement and the Red Sea Democratic Organisation. Bin Laden later extended his contacts to rebel groups in the Ogaden region of southeastern Ethiopia and then into Somalia.

Islam was already widespread there and many Muslims saw the minority Christian communities as interlopers to be driven out. This provided fertile ground for Bin Laden. Somalia illustrates the potential for Al-Qaeda to thrive in harsh, remote and almost ungovernable areas. Divided into competing fiefdoms run by warlords, it has no central government. As early as 1992 Muhammad Atef, Bin Laden’s deputy head of military operations, began to visit the country, building close contacts with Al-Itihaad al- Islamiya, a radical jihadist organisation.

In October 1993 the group forced the withdrawal of American peacekeeping troops from Somalia after killing 18 soldiers in an incident that was portrayed in the film Black Hawk Down. Al-Qaeda was directly involved in this operation.

The Somalis were later joined by hundreds of Arab fighters who had been thrown out of Pakistan in 1993 following a crackdown by the government in Islamabad.

Bin Laden moved to Khartoum in December 1991 and began to extend his contacts in the Horn of Africa. His wealth and renown as a mujaheddin leader from Afghanistan gave him great status, which he used to influence the government and expand his organisation, setting up more than 20 military training camps.

Bin Laden was forced to flee in May 1996 when his protector, Hasan al-Turabi, leader of the Islamists in the government, lost a power struggle with the military, which approached the Americans about handing him over. He moved his operational centre to Afghanistan where the Taliban had just taken power.

The Horn of Africa was to remain an area of great interest to Bin Laden, however. In June 1995 Al-Qaeda tried to kill Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, during a visit to Ethiopia. It was to have been followed shortly afterwards by attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

That operation was delayed because of the reaction to the attempt on Mubarak’s life and Bin Laden’s move to Afghanistan. But in August 1998 suicide bombers attacked the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam, in neighbouring Tanzania.

Bin Laden was already thinking of how to expand his influence, looking towards central and west Africa. He knew that in sub-Saharan Africa there were more than 160m Muslims. The Sudanese government was already fighting a war against Christian and animist tribesmen in the south. There were also many Muslims scattered throughout Congo, Guinea- Bissau, Senegal, Nigeria and other countries in west Africa.

Despite the debacle in Somalia and the attacks on its embassies, Washington could have been forgiven for believing it had solved its problems in east Africa in the aftermath of the terrorist onslaught on America on September 11 last year. It had the use of military facilities at Mombasa and was firmly entrenched in Djibouti, from where it was running special operations into the Yemen on the other side of the Red Sea.

America had helped to reorganise Kenyan intelligence, funding a new headquarters and training for dozens of staff. Lessons were also learnt from Al-Qaeda prisoners captured in the aftermath of the embassy bombings, several of whom were put on trial in America where they are now serving life sentences.

Yet Al-Qaeda did not go away. Last month representatives from the military and intelligence services of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania met to discuss reports of an impending terror attack. They did not know which country would be targeted but they were sure there would be a suicide bomb.

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