: A UN Security Council report issued on 11 July concluded that Somalia is an "excellent" location for terrorist activities and decided that neighboring countries have a "key role" to play in preventing illegal arms shipments to the country. As a "failed state" which has not had a functioning central government since 1991, Somalia is appealing for hard-to-trace financial transactions and shipments of illegal goods and questionable personnel. The investigators determined that Somalia was not a particularly attractive site for Al Qaeda's fixed base of operations or any other transnational terrorist network, without elaborating.

Somalia's neighbors believed the U.N. embargo had never been effectively enforced. The UN report also noted how dhows and donkeys were used to smuggle weapons and other goods "such as endangered wildlife species, drugs and ivory". The report recommended that a UN panel of experts should be set up in Kenya's capital Nairobi, to strengthen and monitor the arms embargo. - Adam Geibel

See also http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=4162&Cr=Somalia&Cr1=