UN report: Banned Somali charcoal exports pass through Iran
UNITED NATIONS -- Banned charcoal exports from Somalia are thriving, generating millions of dollars a year for al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab extremists -- and often passing through Iran to have their origins obscured, according to UN sanctions monitors.
Six years after the UN Security Council prohibited exports of prized Somali charcoal to try to choke off a money stream to al-Shabab, an estimated three million bags of the commodity are making their way out of the Horn of Africa country each year, the monitors say in excerpts of a yet-unpublished report seen by The Associated Press.
The main destinations are ports in Iran, where the charcoal -- already falsely labeled as coming from Comoros, Ghana or Ivory Coast -- is transferred from blue-green bags into white bags labeled "product of Iran," the report says. The bags are then loaded on Iranian-flagged ships and sent to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, with certificates claiming Iran as the charcoal's country of origin.
