Batist

U.S. launches new attacks in Somalia

By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 9 minutes ago

MOGADISHU, Somalia - U.S. helicopter gunships launched new attacks Tuesday against suspected al-Qaida members, a Somali official said, a day after American forces launched airstrikes in the first offensive in the African country since 18 U.S. troops were killed there in 1993.
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The latest attacks killed at least 27 civilians in the town of Afmadow in southern Somalia, lawmaker Abdiqadir Daqane told The Associated Press.

At least one AC-130 gunship carried out an airstrike Monday evening against targets in the town about 220 miles southwest of the capital of Mogadishu, Somali officials said. It was not immediately clear how many people died in those attacks, but Somali officials said there were reports that many were killed.

The U.S. attacks were targeting Islamic extremists, said a Somali Defense Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak. Earlier, Somalia's president had said the U.S. was hunting suspects in the 1998 bombings of the two U.S. embassies in East Africa, and had his support.

The aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived off Somalia's coast and launched intelligence-gathering missions over Somalia, the military said. Three other U.S. warships are conducting anti-terror operations off the Somali coast.

U.S. warships have been seeking to capture al-Qaida members thought to be fleeing Somalia after Ethiopia invaded Dec. 24 in support of the government and drove the Islamic militia out of the capital and toward the Kenyan border.

The Islamic extremists are believed to be sheltering suspects in the embassy bombings, and the raids are designed to keep the militants from posing a new threat to the government.

The White House would not confirm the attacks, nor would the
Pentagon.

A U.S. government official said at least one AC-130 gunship was used Monday evening. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the operation's sensitivity.

It was the first U.S. offensive in the Horn of Africa country since the Americans led a U.N. force in the 1990s that intervened in Somalia in an effort to fight famine. The mission led to clashes between U.N. forces and Somali warlords, including the "Black Hawk Down" battle that left 18 U.S. servicemen dead.

Witnesses said at least four civilians were killed Monday 30 miles east of Afmadow, including a small boy. The claims could not be independently verified.

"My 4-year-old boy was killed in the strike," Mohamed Mahmud Burale told the AP by telephone. "We also heard 14 massive explosions."

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."

Witnesses said that in Tuesday's attack, the helicopters opened fire on the road that leads to the Kenyan border. They said they could not clearly make out the markings on the aircraft.

Daqane said two newlyweds were among the dead Tuesday.

The U.S. Embassy in Nairobi reissued a terror warning Tuesday to Americans living in or visiting the Horn of Africa.

Monday evening's airstrike came after the suspects were seen hiding on a remote island on the southern tip of Somalia, close to the Kenyan border, Somali officials said. The island and a site near the village of Hayi, 155 miles to the north, were hit.

The main target was Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, who allegedly planned the 1998 attacks on the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed 225 people.

He is also suspected of planning the car bombing of a beach resort in Kenya and the near simultaneous attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner in 2002. Ten Kenyans and three Israelis were killed in the blast at the hotel, 12 miles north of Mombasa. The missiles missed the airliner.

Fazul, 32, joined al-Qaida in
Afghanistan and trained there with
Osama bin Laden, according to the transcript of an
FBI interrogation of a known associate. He came to Kenya in the mid-1990s, married a local woman, became a citizen and started teaching at a religious school near Lamu, just 60 miles south of Ras Kamboni, Somalia, where one of the airstrikes took place Monday.

Largely isolated, the coast north of Lamu is predominantly Muslim and many residents are of Arab descent. Boats from Lamu often visit Somalia and the Persian Gulf, making the Kenya-Somalia border area ideal for him to escape.

President Abdullahi Yusuf told journalists in the capital, Mogadishu, that the U.S. "has a right to bombard terrorist suspects who attacked its embassies." Deputy Prime Minister Hussein Aideed told The Associated Press the U.S. had "our full support for the attacks."

But others in the capital said the attacks would only increase anti-American sentiment in the largely Muslim country.

"U.S. involvement in the fighting in our country is completely wrong," said Sahro Ahmed, a 37-year-old mother of five.

Already, many people in predominantly Muslim Somalia had resented the presence of troops from neighboring Ethiopia, which has a large Christian population and has fought two brutal wars with Somalia, most recently in 1977.

The U.S. Central Command reassigned the Eisenhower to Somalia last week from its mission supporting
NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, said
U.S. Navy spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Charlie Brown in Bahrain, where the Navy's Fifth Fleet is based.

"Eisenhower aircraft have flown intelligence-gathering missions over Somalia," Brown told The Associated Press.

The spokesman said the Eisenhower was the only U.S. aircraft carrier in the region. The vessel is carrying approximately 60 aircraft, including four fighter jet squadrons, he said.

Ethiopia forces had invaded Somalia to prevent an Islamic movement from ousting the weak, internationally recognized government from its lone stronghold in the west of the country. The U.S. and Ethiopia both accuse the Islamic group of harboring extremists, among them al-Qaida suspects.

Ethiopian troops, tanks and warplanes took just 10 days to drive the Islamic group from the capital, Mogadishu, and other key towns.

Ethiopian and Somali troops had in recent days cornered the main Islamic force in Ras Kamboni, a town on Badmadow island, with U.S. warships patrolling offshore and the Kenyan military guarding the border to watch for fleeing militants.

The AC-130 is armed with 40 mm guns that fire 120 rounds per minute and a 105 mm cannon, normally a field artillery weapon. The gunships were designed primarily for battlefield use to place saturated fire on massed troops.

U.S. officials said after the Sept. 11 attacks that extremists with ties to al-Qaida operated a training camp at Ras Kamboni and al-Qaida members are believed to have visited it.

Leaders of the Islamic movement have vowed from their hideouts to launch an
Iraq-style guerrilla war in Somalia, and al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden's deputy has called on militants to carry out suicide attacks on the Ethiopian troops.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said in an interview published Tuesday in the French newspaper Le Monde that suspected terrorists from Canada, Britain, Pakistan and elsewhere have been 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, sinking the Horn of Africa nation of 7 million people into chaos.

A U.N. peacekeeping force, including U.S. troops, arrived in 1992, but the experiment in nation-building ended the next year when fighters loyal to clan leader Mohamed Farah Aideed shot down a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter and battled American troops, killing 18 servicemen.

At least 13 attempts at government have failed since then. The current government was established in 2004 with U.N. backing.

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AxeUnleashed

Why are the Muslim extremists always bombed, there are other ways of taking out criminals, much like they do in the US, WITHOUT killing civilians every time. Have they ever actually done a bombing, not killed civilians and come out with the body of an actual terrorist?

I thought so.

MrSnuggles

maybe if the "criminals" didnt situate themselves around "innocent" civilians.... nah, nevermind.

AxeUnleashed

That's my point, I'm not supporting them, I'm saying America doesn't need to use bombs to take them down, bullets work just fine. If we had the guts to actually use soldiers we could save lives.

And these "innocent" civilians are families, people in their own homes do not deserve to be bombed.

MrSnuggles

you mean just like the israeli women and children killed by suicide bombers? oh, thats right, they arent innocent, they are evil joos that deserve to die.

AxeUnleashed

It's not like America and Israel haven't had civilian casualties in their bombings, I posted an article on that last week, ISN'T THAT WHAT THIS ARTICLE IS ABOUT? Just because it's not a suicide bombing, that doesn't mean innocent civilians aren't dying. It's part of war, and always will be.

I have nothing against Jews, many of my friends are Jews, the Koron says nothing against Jews, throughout history Arabs and Muslim Empires have given Jews asylum and protection when no one else would; so please, stop using that same comment over and over again.

Plus, every citizen in Israel is a trained soldier, they were paid to move there, and knew the risks. Their purpose is to establish Israeli settlements and further displace the Palestinians from their homes.

Dawson

I actually believe Kyuubi when he says he knows a lot of Jews. It explains why he bought the woodchipper.

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LastAlliance

^HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

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Wow...just wow.

AxeUnleashed

Try and respond to the rest of my post, or do you just want to attack me again?

MrSnuggles

sure, but theres a difference between collateral damage and INTENTIONALLY killing innocent people. except, wait... the joos arent innocent people, they are evil villains. nevermind.
it says plenty of negative and antagonistic things about jews.
and the paranoid rationalization for genocide comes out. sorry pal, israeli jews just want to live in peace and freedom like the rest of us. they dont have evil intentions like you seem to think.

AxeUnleashed

I've read it six times and memorized about 7% of it by heart, if you really think you know more about it then me, please, show me some of these (from a standard Qur'an translation site)

So you deny that they're paid and trained?

I know a family that just moved there under those conditions. They had to "prove their Hebrew heritage" they were then paid, and never seen in the US again.

Orange

God, why do people keep on ****ing with the Jews? Seriously. Just ****ing stop it, KyuubiWarrior. Sure they control a lot of the money in the world, what exactly did they do for you? You have a job, you get paid. Get the **** over it, you ****face. I'd like to find all those anti-Semites and rip their goddamn balls off, and shove them down their throats.

AxeUnleashed

How old are you, really?

I'm not anti-semitic, I'm anti-zionist (against the occupation of Palestine.) You better be younger than 15.

Crunchy

Is America being run by complete idiots?

MrSnuggles

why waste my time when you will just deny, deny, deny which is what all good muslims do when faced with criticism.


paid and trained for what?
yes, because they want jews in a jewish state, not mexicans or the irish. and if it takes money to encourage people to emigrate, so what? i dont see what is so heinous about that.

AxeUnleashed

Nothings wrong with that, I'm just saying that every person who moves there knows the risks (which is why the need money to be convinced), they are given brief military training (everyone) when they get there. There are no civilians in Israel, I told you this months ago and we got over that argument, I guess you just forget all the times I prove a point that you can't bull**** your way out of.

leafs rule

I don't think children are trained for the military. But you're right, Israel sucks and so does the USA. Thank ____ for Canada!

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AxeUnleashed

Once they reach a certain age, it's fairly low (pre/early teens for the early training I think)

Chrono

Thank...Flying Spaghetti Monster?

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