NAIROBI, 15 November (IRIN) - The Barakaat Telecommunications Company, the largest in Somalia, has closed down its international telephone services throughout Somalia, after its British and American business partners terminated their relationship with the Al-Barakaat group, a senior company official told IRIN. The move has greatly limited telephone contact between the country and the outside world.

"We were forced to shut down on Tuesday night after our international gateway was cut off by Concert Communications", a company jointly owned by British Telecom and AT&T, Abdullah Kahiye, Barakaat Telecommunications general manager said on Thursday.

A Concert Communications spokesman, Naill Hickey, told IRIN, also on Thursday that the reason for the closure of the link was the Al-Barakaat group's connection with Osama bin Laden, the chief suspect behind the 11 September attacks in the US, so "we have terminated our business relations with them". He declined to elaborate further.

The Al-Barakaat group is one of the 62 organisations and individuals which the US authorities have accused of having links with terrorism, and whose assets were seized worldwide on 7 November. The group has consistently denied the charge, and accused the US government of responding to "rumours and lies". Kahiye described the move as "yet another attempt to destroy our business". He said that Concert Communications had closed its gateway "without even notifying us".

Barakaat Communications has over 25,000 subscribers in Mogadishu alone. Kahiye said the company's partners in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, northeastern Somalia - Barakaat-Red Sea, and Barakaat-GlobalTel in the self-declared republic of Somaliland, northwestern Somalia, were the largest in their respective areas, with over 5,000 subscribers in Puntland and 10,000 in Somaliland.

The shutdown of Barakaat Telecommunications has affected every aspect of life in Somalia, Awil Abdi Hashi, a Mogadishu businessman, told IRIN. "We have been unable to contact our business partners for two days," he said. Because of the unpredictable security situation, "they may think something has happened to us". There were other telephone companies, but most people were using Barakaat, and "these other companies cannot take the load as of now", he added.

"It seems to me that the Americans want us to return to 1991," said Hashi, referring to the start of the civil war when telecommunications services ceased to operate in Somalia.

Somali experts told IRIN that one positive effect of the civil war had been the introduction of modern telecommunications technology in the country. "Somalia today has one of the best international telephone services in the region and, at US $1 per minute, it is among the cheapest
anywhere in world," one of them, said.

Humanitarian agencies are worried about the effects the closure of the money transfer and telecommunications systems will have on the Somali people. "This action threatens to plunge the country into a greater isolation than it was in previously," a humanitarian source told IRIN. The timing of these actions did not augur well for "emerging authorities in Somalia", he added.

Kahiye said the effects of the action were illustrated by one elderly woman in a small town in Somalia, who lost access to $100 sent to her by her daughter living in the US just a few days ago, and now, with the closure of telephone services had also the lost the remaining means of contact with her daughter.

"Where is justice in this?" he asked. Kahiye said that all along his company had been asking "for simple justice. I say again to the Americans, please come and investigate. Don't depend on lies and rumours put about by envious competitors or others with a hidden agenda. We have nothing to hide."