WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- The United States is very much concerned over the presence of al-Qaida terrorists in Somalia, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said on Tuesday.

    "Very clearly, the U.S. government has had a concern that there are terrorists and al-Qaida affiliated terrorists that were in Somalia. We have a great interest in seeing that those individuals not be able to flee to other locations," McCormack told reporters.

    Somalia, which has been riven by factional fighting and has not had a functioning national government since Muhammad Siad Barre's regime was toppled in 1991, must not to become a safe haven for terrorists, he noted.

    The U.S. forces, based in Djibouti, began last Wednesday patrolling the seas off Somalia in a bid to capture some leaders of the Islamic Courts movement, including suspected al-Qaida agents wanted for the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa, the State Department said.

    The United States set up the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa in 2002 in Djibouti, a major hub for U.S. counter-terrorism training and operations as well as humanitarian efforts.