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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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January 9th,
2007 - U.S. Somali Air Strikes ‘Kill Many’ |
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U.S. Somali Air Strikes ‘Kill
Many’ BBC News January 9, 2007 The US has carried out at
least two air strikes in southern Somalia targeting Islamist fighters, who
the US believes include members of an al-Qaeda cell. The militias were reported
to have been tracked by aerial reconnaissance and then attacked by a US
gunship launched from a US military base in Djibouti. The US says Somali Islamists
sheltered al-Qaeda operatives linked to the 1998 US embassy bombings in East
Africa. The Somali transitional
government says many people were killed in the raid. The air strikes are taking
place just a few days after the Union of Islamic Courts, which had taken
control of much of central and southern Somalia during the past six months,
was routed by soldiers from Ethiopia and Somalia's transitional government. The US accuses the Islamists
of having links to al-Qaeda - charges they deny. A Pentagon spokesman, Bryan
Whitman, confirmed that the US struck southern Somalia on Sunday, and said
the target was al-Qaeda leadership believed to be in the area. ‘Boy killed’ Witnesses told the BBC
Somali service that areas near the town of Afmadow were being bombed on
Tuesday. They report hearing heavy
firing in a number of areas and have seen military helicopters flying
overhead. On Monday, the nearby
village of Hayo was bombed. "My four-year-old boy
was killed in the strike," Mohamed Mahmud Burale told the BBC from the
area. Local MP Abdulkadir Haji
Mohamoud Dhagane told the BBC that 27 people, mostly civilians, had been
killed near Afmadow. "Thousands of Somalis
are caught between the rock and hard place as they are in the middle of air
strikes, Ethiopian tanks and the Kenyan soldiers who have blocked the
border," he said. Afmadow is 250km north of
Ras Kamboni, close to the Kenyan border, where Islamist fighters have been
attacked by Ethiopian and government forces. The island of Badmado off
Ras Kamboni was also hit by air strikes on Monday afternoon. The bombing is the first
overt military action by the US in Somalia since 1994, the year after 18 US
troops were killed in Mogadishu. The attack was carried out
by an Air Force AC-130, a heavily-armed gunship that has highly effective
detection equipment and can work under the cover of darkness. Credible reports suggest
that the Ethiopian air force has set up a base in Kismayo, with two MiG
fighters and four helicopter gunships, which may be taking part in the raids. Al-Qaeda Somalia's interim President
Abdullahi Yusuf backed the US action. "The US has a right to
bombard terrorist suspects who attacked its embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania," he said in Mogadishu, a day after entering the city for the
first time since the Islamists withdrew. More than 250 people died in
the 1998 attacks in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, for which al-Qaeda has claimed
responsibility. The US also holds the same
cell responsible for attacks on an Israeli aircraft and Israeli-owned hotel
in Kenya in 2002, in which 15 people died. In other developments: Ethiopia's Prime Minister
Meles Zenawi says foreign fighters from Canada, Eritrea, Pakistan, Sudan, the
United Kingdom and Yemen have been captured in Somalia. EU foreign policy chief
Javier Solana tells the BBC that the EU is ready to help deploy troops in
Somalia and casts doubt on the ability of the African Union to send a
peacekeeping force. South Africa says it is
considering a request to send troops to Somalia. The US military says it had
sent an aircraft carrier to join three other US warships conducting
anti-terror operations off the Somali coast. External link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/africa/6243459.stm |