The Comoros, the Indian Ocean archipelago which is the birthplace of east Africa’s top al Qaeda suspect, says it plans to ratify five international conventions on counter-terrorism before the end of the year.

Attorney General Jaffar Ahmed Said, speaking at a seminar on security in the Indian Ocean region, said the measures would be submitted to parliament for approval as part of the islands’ contribution to the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism.

Ratification of international protocols requires participating nations to abide by their terms and make periodic reports to the United Nations on compliance. “These proceedings show the determination and firm intention of the Comoros authorities to ratify these protocols rapidly,” Mahamoud Fakridine Mradabi, head of the national authority for documentation and state protection, told the seminar last week.

Officials added that they would seek help from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in training civil servants how to enforce the protocols, set up extradition agreements and develop procedures for tackling multinational crime syndicates. The measures to be ratified concern the marking of plastic explosives to enable their detection, the protection of nuclear material, suppression of unlawful acts of violence at airports, the suppression of unlawful acts against the safety of maritime navigation and suppression of unlawful acts against the safety of fixed platforms on the continental shelf.

Comoros has attracted the attention of US investigators following the trail of a suspected al Qaeda agent on the politically unstable islands of vanilla vines and medieval mosques. One of Washington’s most wanted suspects, Comoran-born Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, is accused of organising the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people, and an attack on an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya in 2002.

A US official said in October 2004 there had been reports of sightings in Comoros of Fazul, who has a $5 million bounty on his head, but it was difficult to verify due to Comoros’ limited intelligence resources.

Western countries have worried the government lacks the means to monitor the movements of some young Comorans educated in the Gulf who are suspected of sympathising with al Qaeda.

The impoverished volcanic islands off Africa’s east coast have been rocked by 20 coups or coup attempts since independence from France in 1975. The United States has been helping Comoros set up a coast guard to watch its ocean border and improve port security.

Ahmed ALI AMIR