OTTAWA -- The Canadian Security Intelligence Service warns much of Africa could be fertile soil for Osama bin Laden's terrorist network to cultivate new recruits.

Foreign extremist organizations such as al-Qaida "have exploited the permissive environment of the continent," CSIS says in the report obtained by The Canadian Press.

Release of the spy service's grim assessment comes as Canada ponders taking on a greater humanitarian role in war-ravaged Sudan.

The newly declassified report notes that, while Muslim communities of sub-Saharan Africa have grown more militant since the advent of multi-party democracy in the mid-1990s, this militancy "is driven more by domestic politics than Islamic extremism."

CSIS argues, however, that could change.

The conflict and poverty of central and southern Africa, along with the weakness or failure of several states, have increased the receptiveness of some African Muslims "to the message of global jihad and ensured a ready supply of local recruits," the intelligence service says.

"The poor, young, disaffected and undereducated members of these communities have provided terrorist organizations with intelligence and logistical support for their activities."

A copy of the August 2004 report, The Islamist Threat in Sub-Saharan Africa, was recently released under the Access to Information Act. It is marked Secret/Canadian Eyes Only.

A section of the declassified document entitled Implications for Canada was completely blanked out.

Al-Qaida attacks on the American embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi in 1998 killed 224 people and injured thousands. But CSIS says it wasn't until the Sept. 11, 2001, assaults on New York and Washington that the West seriously considered the threat of Islamic extremism and other forms of terrorism in sub-Saharan Africa.

The United States subsequently led raids on Taliban and al-Qaida forces in Afghanistan, prompting fears some extremists would flee to Africa.

Attention focused on the Horn of Africa, where the al-Ittihad al-Islamiya, "a shadowy Islamic fundamentalist organization" suspected of links to al-Qaida was believed to be regrouping, CSIS says.

In the heavily censored report, the intelligence service also mentions Sudan, a sanctuary for bin Laden in the early 1990s, as well as Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania as possible breeding grounds for violent extremism.

The report says that while West Africa has not yet experienced a terrorist attack against a western target, the region "contains large ungoverned areas," particularly along the southern edge of the Sahara Desert.

In addition, the political instability of most West African states has left them susceptible to the "proselytizing of extremist Islamic clergy" calling for a return to strict enforcement of Muslim law.

However, CSIS stresses that while western countries remain seized with the fallout of the 9/11 attacks, Africa has been subsumed by its own horrible turmoil.

The report notes the terrorist outrages motivating the West are "seen as relatively minor when compared to the depredations perpetrated by domestic terrorist groups operating in sub-Saharan Africa."

Millions of people have died or been driven from their homes in brutal conflicts in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.