As an illustration of how fast 'secrets' fly around the region, the Somali newspaper Xog-Ogaal reported that four US Central Intelligence Agency officers paid unofficial visits to Hargeysa, Mogadishu and Djibouti. The officers secretly arrived in Mogadishu and had been hosted by one of the city's businessmen for the last two days, surveying the current situation. The officers had already visited Somaliland's Hargeysa city, holding meetings with some Ministry of Interior officials and intelligence department officers. After Mogadishu, they traveled to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. According to other sources, the US officers were accompanied by Israeli intelligence officers. - Adam Geibel