New York - Even as some diplomats and journalists describe a U.S. military operation in Somalia to weed out terrorist elements as inevitable, experts say such an attack would make little sense and is therefore unlikely.

"I don’t think there are targets in Somalia to hit," said Ken Menkhaus, associate professor of political science at North Carolina’s Davidson College, and an expert on the Horn of Africa. "And that’s the general consensus. I don’t think I’m an outlier on that."

"I think there was at one point a real movement within the U.S. government to attack Somalia," Menkhaus added. "They did look into it, and then they realized there’s not much in the way of conventional targets in Somalia."

Menkhaus has followed the recent talk of an attack on Somalia closely, and he recently traveled to Washington, DC to speak at the State Department and the Carnegie Foundation.

When asked if U.S. airstrikes of Somalia are likely, Herman Cohen, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, said, "I would doubt it very much. It’s not the type of situation that requires airstrikes."

Representatives of Somalia’s interim ruling coalition, the Transitional National Government, in New York also say they do not expect an attack. Idd Bedel, political advisor to the ambassador in Somalia’s mission to the United Nations, told The Monitor the U.S. government has assured Somalia it will not be attacking Somalia. He also said the Kenyan and Ugandan delegations have assured him no attacks of Somalia will be launched from their soil.

These statements of skepticism about airstrikes in Somalia contrast sharply with many recent press accounts in the West and East Africa. The Daily Telegraph of London reported Dec. 13 that American sources indicated the U.S. has decided to attack Al Qaeda fugitives in Somalia. On Wednesday, a senior German official told Reuters that U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, while briefing NATO defense ministers Tuesday, said the U.S. is likely to strike Somalia next. Also Wednesday, an editorial in the East African Standard referred to "the USA-Somalia war." And Wednesday’s Daily Telegraph of Sydney reported that elite Australian troops have been earmarked for operations in Somalia and Yemen.

Also disputed is what Kenya’s role would be in any attack. The Times of London of Dec. 15 cited diplomatic sources who said that Britain secured Kenya’s permission to use its soil as a base for military operations in Somalia. The Kenyan Department of Defence denied this.

Despite all this, Menkhaus believes strikes against Somalia would be misguided. His opinion was formed by many visits to Somalia. He has studied the country since 1984 and has traveled there almost every year since then, sometimes for almost a year at a time.

Somalia could be seen as a legitimate target for two reasons: if it contains indigenous Islamic radical groups, or if it may provide safe harbor to foreign Al Qaeda cells. Menkhaus says it fails on both counts.

Al Ittihad Al Islamiya is a Somali Islamic radical organization, and it has been the focus of many prognosticators who have predicted war. Indeed, the group did reportedly once host Osama bin Laden, the head of Al Qaeda and the mastermind of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. But according to Menkhaus, Al Ittihad has dropped jihad and is seeking influence by less violent means.

"They have taken a long term view in believing that Somalia is not yet ready for Islamic rule," Menkhaus said of Al Ittihad. "They now use the tactic of assimilation and integration. They live in and among their own people, and focus on socialization, education, and influencing the judiciary. That’s hardly grounds for bombing."

Many have recently taken bin Laden at his word and attributed the 1993 killing of 18 U.S. soldiers in Mogadishu to Al Qaeda. But Menkhaus said this supposition has been discredited in knowledgeable circles. "Bin Laden himself made the claim, so it got a certain amount of currency," Menkhaus said. "But once people looked it into it, they found it was just a false claim."

While Somali warlords may have received help from Al Qaeda, Menkhaus said any such help was minimal.

The second possible reason to strike Somalia - that it may be harboring Al Qaeda fugitives - strikes Menkhaus as even less likely. "I don’t think they’d be welcomed," he told The Monitor. "It’s very difficult for non-Somalis to engage in secret operations in Somalia. Somalis know who you are, what you’re doing, and what you had for breakfast."

"Somalia would be a poor long-term base for Al Qaeda," Menkhaus concluded. "If Al Qaeda was stuck in Somalia, it’s an indication that they’ve lost."

But then, he doesn’t see any good options for the group. "They have only poor choices," Menkhaus said of Al Qaeda. The most attractive among poor alternatives, he believes, would be areas not under government control where Al Qaeda could blend in and escape notice. Two such places are parts of Sudan and the slums of Nairobi, according to Menkhaus.

Even Yemen, believed to have a weak central government, has in recent days cracked down on suspected Al Qaeda cells within its borders with a vigor not seen in any other Arab country since September 11.

All this is not to say Somalia will not be a focus of U.S. counterterrorism efforts, Menkhaus and Cohen emphasized. Its porous borders make it a danger zone for transshipment of men, materiel, and money. Some have alleged that material for the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania was transshipped through Somalia.

To counter this, Menkhaus prescribed "much more monitoring and surveillance, much more work with local authorities, and more interdiction around Somalia’s coast to make sure Al Qaeda individuals are not trying to relocate there."

In the long term, he recommended that the U.S. take steps such as supporting democratization, development, and peace initiatives to ensure that countries in the Horn of Africa do not become recruiting grounds of disaffectedThe best

In the long term, I, angry people who could be turned into terrorists.

"For the moment, the war on terrorism has been about sticks," Menkhaus said. "But the U.S. should also use carrots to make sure key social groups in these countries see their future lies with politics that are tolerant, moderate, and open, and not this radical fascism."