Washington which would be later reaffirmed by the U.S. National Security Council during meeting about Somalia in March 2006. At the time of the meeting there was fierce fighting in between the warlords and the Islamic Courts around Mogadishu, and the decision was taken to make counterterrorism the top policy priority for Somalia. The warlords had united under the banner of the "Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism", and according by the International Crisis Group, had a notorious pattern of seizing innocent clerics with little or no intelligence value, which greatly feed into a growing perception among Somalis that the Americans and the warlords were waging a war against Islam under the guise of the War on Terrorism. According to Mary Harper, a journalist with BBC Africa, the Islamic Courts Union was in reality more of a loose federation and only began to unite into a homogenous body with a clear authority when its existence was threatened by the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism. The internationally recognized Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, being both in conflict with the Islamic Courts and backed by the Americans, openly opposed the Americans operation to fund the warlords. Nine of Mogadishu's most prominent community leaders that were opposed to the ICU claim they secretly flew to neighboring Djibouti in early March 2006 and pleaded with U.S. military officials there to stop funding the warlords who were devastating the city. They allege that they warned the Americans that backing the hated warlords would end up greatly empowering the Islamic Courts and inflame the radical elements within it. American support for the warlords extended to the point where, on numerous occasions, Nairobi-based CIA officers would land on warlord-controlled airstrips in Mogadishu with large amounts of money for distribution to Somali militias. According to John Prendergast, CIA-operated flights into Somalia had been bringing in $100,000 to $150,000 USD per month for the warlords and he further claimed that the flights would remain in Somalia for the day so that CIA agents can confer with them. The CIA also gave its newfound allies surveillance equipment for "tracking al Qaeda suspects". A United Nations report on violations of the international arms embargo on Somalia claimed that the Ethiopian government had armed warlord Mohamed Dheere to fight the ICU. According to multiple U.S. officials, the decision to use of the warlords as proxies was born