Shanghai Daily News,
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
advertisements
HELICOPTER gunships attacked suspected al-Qaida fighters in the south, a day after U.S. forces staged airstrikes in the first offensive in the African country since 18 American soldiers were killed there in 1993, witnesses said. In Washington, a US intelligence official said the US killed five to 10 people in the attack on a target in southern Somalia believed to be associated with al-Qaida, the Associated Press reported. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the operation's sensitivity, said a small number of others present, perhaps four or five, were wounded.
A Somali lawmaker said 31 civilians, including a newlywed couple, died in yesterday's assault by two helicopters near Afmadow, a town in an area of forested hills near the Kenyan border 350 kilometers southwest of Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. The report could not be independently verified.
A Somali Defense Ministry official described the helicopters as American, but the local witnesses told the Associated Press they could not make out identification markings on the craft. Washington officials had no comment on the helicopter strike.
The US is targeting Islamic extremists, the Somali defense official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters. Somalia's president said the US was hunting suspects in the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in East Africa, and had his support.
His troops and their Ethiopian backers were attacked in the capital late yesterday by gunmen riding in two pickup trucks firing two rocket-propelled grenades, witnesses said. That attack was followed by several minutes of rifle fire. One Somali government soldier was killed, and two soldiers and a bystander were injured, said minibus driver Harun Ahmed, who took the wounded to hospital.
Late yesterday Col. Shino Moalin Nur, a Somali military commander, told the AP by telephone that at least one US AC-130 gunship attacked a suspected al-Qaida training camp Sunday on a remote island at the southern tip of Somalia. Somali officials said they had reports of many deaths.
Witnesses and Nur said Monday that more US airstrikes were launched against Islamic extremists in Hayi, 50 kilometers from Afmadow. Nur said attacks continued yesterday.
"Nobody can exactly explain what is going on inside these forested areas," Nur said. "However, we are receiving reports that most of the Islamist fighters have died, and the rest would be captured soon."
US Defense Department officials, speaking privately yesterdaysday in Washington because the department was not releasing the information, suggested the US military was either planning or considering additional strikes in Somalia.
With the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower off Somalia's coast, commanders can call in strikes from fixed-wing aircraft such as the F/A-18. Defense Department officials said that, as of yesterday, no carrier-based aircraft had conducted strikes in Somalia.
Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said yesterday that the US military assault had been based on intelligence "that led us to believe we had principal al-Qaida leaders in an area where we could identify them and take action against them." He would not confirm any details of the strike, conducted early Monday local time by at least one AC-130 gunship. He would not say if any specific members of al-Qaida had been killed, or address if the operations were continuing.
Somali Islamic extremists are accused of sheltering suspects in the 1998 embassy bombings, and American officials also want to make sure the militants will no longer pose a threat to Somalia's UN-backed transitional government.
The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower has launched intelligence-gathering missions over Somalia, the US military said. Three other US warships were conducting anti-terror operations off Somalia's coast.
US warships have been seeking to capture al-Qaida members thought to be fleeing since December 24, when Ethiopia's military invaded in support of the Somali government and drove the Islamic militia out of the capital and toward the Kenyan border.
President Abdullahi Yusuf, head of Somalia's transitional government, told journalists in Mogadishu that the US "has a right to bombard terrorist suspects who attacked its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania."
But others in the capital said the attacks would increase anti-American sentiment in the largely Muslim country, where people are already upset by the presence of troops from neighboring Ethiopia, which has a large Christian population.
The US Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, reissued a terror warning yesterday to Americans living in or visiting the Horn of Africa.
It was the first overt military action by the US in Somalia since it led a UN force that intervened in the 1990s in an effort to fight famine. The mission led to clashes between UN forces and Somali warlords, including the "Black Hawk Down" battle that killed 18 US soldiers.
Mohamed Mahmud Burale told the AP by telephone that at least four civilians were killed Monday evening in Hayi, including his young son. The claims could not be independently verified.
Government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said it was not known how many people were killed, "but we understand there were a lot of casualties. Most were Islamic fighters."
Another AC-130 attack reportedly occurred Monday afternoon on Badmadow island, in a group of six rocky islands known as Ras Kamboni that is suspected as a terrorist training base. The main target on the island was thought to be Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, who allegedly planned the 1998 embassy attacks that killed 225 people.
Leaders of Somalia's Islamic movement have vowed from their hideouts to launch an Iraq-style guerrilla war, and al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden's deputy has called on militants to carry out suicide attacks on Ethiopian troops.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said in an interview published yesterday in the French newspaper Le Monde that suspected terrorists from Canada, Britain, Pakistan and elsewhere were among those taken prisoner or killed in the military operations in Somalia.
Somalia has not had an effective central government since clan-based warlords toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned on each other. The interim government was established in 2004.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said yesterday he was worried that the US bombing could escalate hostilities and harm civilians. His spokeswoman Michele Montas said Ban "is concerned about the new dimension this kind of action could introduce to the conflict and the possible escalation of hostilities that may result."
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he told Ban on Monday that a UN peacekeeping force may be needed to guarantee security and stability in Somalia.
European Commission spokesman Amadeu Altafaj Tardio said yesterday that the US airstrikes would not contribute to bringing about long-term peace.
Source: Shanghai Daily News, Jan 09, 2007