US Strike on Somalia

[S O F I]

US 'targets al-Qaeda' in Somalia

The US used AC-130 gunship in raids over Somalia.

US air strikes in Somalia are aimed at al-Qaeda leaders in the region, and based on "credible intelligence", a Pentagon spokesman has said.

In its first official comment on the air strikes, the Pentagon said a raid was carried out on Sunday but declined to say if it had hit its target.

The US has long said al-Qaeda suspects linked to the 1998 US embassy bombings in East Africa took refuge in Somalia.

At least 19 people were killed in US air raids, local Somali elders say.

Fresh air raids were reported near the town of Afmadow on Monday and Tuesday, but it is not clear if these were carried out by the US, or by Ethiopian forces which back the transitional Somali government.

Location of militias and US Navy patrols

The air strikes are taking place 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 government.

Latest reports from Mogadishu say unknown assailants have fired rocket propelled grenades at a building housing Ethiopian troops and Somali government forces.

Two explosions were heard, followed by a brief but heavy exchange of automatic gunfire.

'No safe haven'

The US air strikes were carried out by an Air Force AC-130, a heavily armed gunship that has detection equipment and can work under the cover of darkness.


The US has a right to bombard terrorist suspects who attacked its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania
Somali interim president
Abdullahi Yusuf

Twin US aims in Somalia
Fact file: AC-130 gunship
White House spokesman Tony Snow said the US action was a reminder that there was no safe haven for Islamic militants.

"This administration continues to go after al-Qaeda," he said.

"We are interested in going after those who have perpetrated acts of violence against Americans, including bombings of embassies in Kenya and Tanzania."

Somalia's interim President, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, said the US had the right to bomb those who had attacked its embassies.

But Italy - the former colonial power in central and southern Somalia - condemned the US strikes.

Italian Foreign minister Massimo d'Alema said Rome opposed "unilateral initiatives that could spark new tensions".

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed "concern" that the air strikes could lead to an escalation of hostilities.

'Many dead' after US strike on Somalia

Updated: 27 minutes ago

A US aircraft launched an attack in southern Somalia against suspected al-Qaeda terrorists, killing many people, Somali officials said on Tuesday.

The attack on Monday was followed by further strikes on Tuesday, according to a Somali government official. The number of casualties resulting from the raids was unclear, but reports put the number of dead from Tuesday's raids at up to 27 people.
Story continues below ↓ advertisement

US military officials refused to comment on the air-strikes, which reportedly involved an AC-130 gunship and took place in an area known as Ras Kamboni.

US officials have previously told the Financial Times that they deem it their right to pursue terrorists wherever they are.

The attack came 16 days after Ethiopian troops led an offensive against a rival Somali Islamist movement, which both Addis Ababa and Washington accused of harbouring and including al-Qaeda suspects.

The US says three suspects believed to be involved in the 1998 US embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, as well as a 2002 attack on an Israeli-owned hotel on the Kenyan coast and a simultaneous attempt to shoot down an Israeli charter aircraft, have been hiding out in Somalia.

It says they include Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a Comorian who is on the FBI's most wanted terrorist list and is believed to be the leader of an East African terrorist cell. The other two are a Kenyan and a Sudanese national.

It was not clear whether any of the suspects had been killed or wounded in the attack.

"The US has a right to bombard terrorist suspects who attacked its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania," Abdullahi Yusuf, Somalia's interim president said after the attack, which would be the first known direct US military involvement in Somalia since its failed intervention in the Horn of Africa nation in the 1990s.

The US Central Command said on Tuesday it was deploying an aircraft carrier, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, off the Somali coast. The carrier includes F/A 18 Hornets or Super Hornets jets and E-2C Hawkeyes, reconnaissance aircraft, and it was the first time such a vessel had been deployed off Somalia in "recent memory" a US navy spokesman said.

Other US ships have been patrolling Somalia's coastline, one of Africa's longest, to prevent Islamists fleeing by sea.

Washington was thought to have given Addis Ababa tacit support for its offensive against the Somali Islamists. The Islamist movement, which was an alliance of Islamic courts, had controlled much of southern Somalia before the offensive. But faced with Ethiopian tanks and aircraft, it retreated from all its strongholds and its fighters fled south towards the Kenyan border.

The movement, which came to prominence after seizing control of Mogadishu, the Somali capital, from an alliance of US-backed warlords in June, was not a monolithic group and included hardliners and conservatives. Islamist leaders repeatedly denied any links to al-Qaeda and terrorism.

In spite of their rapid defeat they have insisted they will continue to fight, fuelling concerns that Ethiopian troops could be sucked into a guerrilla war.

Efforts are under way to put together an African-led peacekeeping force to bolster the weak Ethiopian-backed Somali transitional government. On Monday, Mr Yusuf entered Mogadishu for the first time in years.

However, his government, which has been plagued by divisions and includes warlords, has little popular support and is dependent on Ethiopia's troops for security. Before the Ethiopian offensive, its area of control was restricted to the small, central town of Baidao.

Somalia, a Muslim nation, has not had an effective central government since the ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and has been plagued by warlordism and clan-based violence.

The lawlessness and the country's proximity to the Middle East caused US officials to describe Somalia as a potential haven for terrorists after the September 11 attacks.

So, the strike was aimed at three fugitives.

 

[PuffnScruff]

http://www.pajamasmedia.com/2007/01/americas_boots_on_the_ground_i.php

How the United States has covertly aided Ethiopia’s fight against the Islamic Courts Union.
by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross for Pajamas Media

The al-Qaeda affiliated Islamic Courts Union’s (ICU) rapid retreat in the face of Ethiopia’s military campaign in Somalia has puzzled many observers. How could the Ethiopians roll up the jihadists so quickly? Pajamas Media has learned that one significant factor is that U.S. air and ground forces covertly aided the Ethiopian military since its intervention began on Christmas day.


U.S. ground forces have been active in Somalia from the start, a senior military intelligence officer confirmed. “In fact,” he said, “they were part of the first group in.”

These ground forces include CIA paramilitary officers who are based out of Galkayo, in Somalia’s semiautonomous region of Puntland, Special Operations forces, and Marine units operating out of Camp Lemonier in Djibouti.

The presence of U.S. airpower in Somalia became public knowledge yesterday when CBS News reported that an AC-130 fixed-wing gunship carried out a strike against suspected al-Qaeda members in southern Somalia. Unmanned aerial drones kept the targets under surveillance while a gunship operated by the U.S. Special Operations Command flew from its base in Djibouti to the southern tip of Somalia.

America supported Ethiopia and the UN-recognized secular government of Somalia because of the ICU’s ties to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. The ICU is led by al-Qaeda ally Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys. The ICU gave refuge to three al-Qaeda terrorists believed responsible for the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings, which claimed the lives of twelve American diplomats and 212 Africans. The ICU operated seventeen terrorist training camps inside Somalia. Finally, some one thousand foreign fighters came to Somalia to train or teach at those camps.

Ethiopia intervened when the ICU began a push to eliminate Somalia’s transitional federal government from its stronghold in the south-central Somali city of Baidoa.

Pajamas Media previously reported that Ethiopia’s use of helicopter gunships capable of targeting the Islamic Courts Union’s ground forces was a decisive factor in the army-to-army fighting against the ICU. A senior military intelligence source says that some of the gunships earlier described as Ethiopian were in fact U.S. aircraft. This has been confirmed by Dahir Jibreel, the transitional government’s permanent secretary in charge of international cooperation, who said that U.S. planes and helicopters with their markings obscured have been striking targets since December 25.

Given late breaking developments, SOCOM spokesman Ken McGraw was unavailable for comment at press time.

Jibreel said that the U.S. and Ethiopia planned this military incursion for several months. He said that he saw U.S. military planes and soldiers at Wajer, a strategic airstrip in Kenya, in October 2006.

Asked about the revelations of early U.S. support for the Ethiopian intervention, Jibreel said, “We believe that the United States was very helpful in defeating the al-Qaeda-guided and al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic Courts Union, and the foreign fighters who were essentially Eritreans, global jihadists, and Ethiopian opposition groups.”

The ground forces have been serving in the role of military advisors. Their duties include identifying ground targets for the Ethiopian air force.

“The goal is to take the ICU apart so they don’t come back,” a military intelligence source said. Sources within the U.S. military, intelligence community, and Somalia’s transitional federal government are concerned that the ICU will mount an insurgent fighting campaign if it is not eviscerated.

American naval vessels, including the USS Ramage and USS Bunker Hill, are patrolling off Somalia’s shores to prevent foreign fighters from arriving to join forces with the ICU and to stop terrorists from escaping.

A military intelligence source tells Pajamas Media that ground forces in Somalia and naval vessels offshore are “almost certainly” coordinating to stop fleeing terrorists; when the ground forces drive terrorists to the shore, the vessels target them.

The critical area for dismantling the ICU is the coastal town of Ras Kamboni, near the Kenyan border. Ras Kamboni is well fortified. The ICU’s predecessor, al-Ittihad al-Islamiyya, fled to Ras Kamboni after Ethiopia intervened militarily in the mid-1990s. A large number of ICU fighters have massed in Ras Kamboni, seemingly planning to regroup there before beginning an insurgent campaign.

The transitional federal government and Ethiopian forces, in turn, are attempting to seal off the area around Ras Kamboni to trap ICU fighters there.

Pajamas Media has learned that there have been high-level communications between ICU affiliates in Ras Kamboni and al-Qaeda’s central leadership. A senior military intelligence officer told Pajamas Media that Ayman al-Zawahiri’s January 5 tape calling for his followers to flock to Somalia to fight alongside the ICU was a result of a plea by a well-connected terrorist figure in Ras Kamboni, most likely Abu Talha al-Sudani, the head of al-Qaeda’s East Africa operations.

High-level communications between Ras Kamboni and al-Qaeda’s central leadership was confirmed by Jibreel. “We are aware of it, and we have informed U.S. agencies of this fact,” he said.

Drawing an analogy, the intelligence source said, “Unless you know someone, you can’t just call up the White House and get the president on the phone.” Al-Qaeda is extremely hierarchical. Yet the pleas from Ras Kamboni not only reached Zawahiri, but also quickly elicited a call from him for jihad in Somalia.

It may be difficult for the cordon to secure the capture or killing of significant ICU leaders, in part because the Kenyan police—who are being counted on to apprehend fighters who are running in their country’s direction—are notoriously corrupt.

If ICU fighters reach Kenya, they will try to hide in Muslim enclaves there. Muslims make up 15% of Kenya’s 35 million population. Many of those Muslims are Somali refugees. The ICU could blend in among their former countrymen, whom they made homeless.

 

[Jokerman]

So, the strike was aimed at three fugitives.

No, it was aimed at "principle Al-Qaeda leadership in the region," which included these two or three who were believed to be responsible for the 1998 bombings of US embassies in east Africa.

And my intelligence sources (of which I have none) tell me there's a slight chance a mucho grande Al-Qaeda leader we all know and love might be in the area too. Just a slight chance.

 

[not really ken]

So Americans bomb entire villages to hopefully 'flush out' three suspected terrorists.

That's exactly what Saddam did (wrongly), use chemichal weapons made in America on entire villages to flush out terrorists trying to topple his government.

Israelis bulldozing houses and bombing civillian areas in the hope of killing suspected terrorists.

When saddam did it, it was ruthless, when the US and Israelis do it, it is 'a price worth paying?

And to puff - hahahah, does anyone even take you seriously? The whole world knows that the current American administration are liars, rutheless and evil. Get outta here with your chicken little politics.

 

[Chronic]

"Team America" (the movie) gets better and better as time passes.

 

[PuffnScruff]

So Americans bomb entire villages to hopefully 'flush out' three suspected terrorists.

That's exactly what Saddam did (wrongly), use chemichal weapons made in America on entire villages to flush out terrorists trying to topple his government.

Israelis bulldozing houses and bombing civillian areas in the hope of killing suspected terrorists.

When saddam did it, it was ruthless, when the US and Israelis do it, it is 'a price worth paying?

And to puff - hahahah, does anyone even take you seriously? The whole world knows that the current American administration are liars, rutheless and evil. Get outta here with your chicken little politics.

didnt read the article did you

 

[not really ken]

^TBH, I read the first line, stopped at the 'al-qaeda affiliated part'

Al-Qaeda is a brand, a red-herring used to terrorise governments and install puppet regimes.

Where are the sophisticated , high-tech caves, that if actually existed could have been seen from space? Rummy, said that 'many of these caves exist'. When in reality, they were impossible to build. He lied, they lie, it's all a lie from the politicians. they lie so blatantly obviously.

 

[PuffnScruff]

the point of me posting the article was to add something to the thread that is not being reported in the msm. it says that their are boots on the ground, special forces, marines, and cia. they are doing the recon and doing the scouting. they are the ones finding where the guys are at giving the targets to the air support. i posted this because i knew someone would comeone in the thread saying that the big bad evil u.s. is bombing random places in hopes if getting few guys.

as far as the al-qaeda being a brand....tell that to them they are the ones who came up with the name

 

[The.Menace]

"Team America" (the movie) gets better and better as time passes.

I agree.....

 

[Jokerman]

Al-Qaeda is a brand

I got sneakers and a sweatshirt with their logo.

 

[Glockmatic]

I got sneakers and a sweatshirt with their logo.

they use sweatshops to make those

 

[S O F I]

Update:

Somali raids miss terror suspects

The US air strikes in Somalia failed to kill any of the three al-Qaeda suspects they targeted, a top US official says.

The three were wanted in connection with the 1998 bombing of US embassies in East Africa and a 2002 attack on Israeli targets in Kenya.

Somali officials had earlier reported that one of the men had been killed.

The US accused Somalia's routed Islamist group of harbouring the three - charges they denied. The air strikes have been strongly criticised.

The US official, who refused to be named, however said that Somalis with close ties to al-Qaeda had been killed.

Earlier, US ambassador to Kenya and Somalia Michael Ranneberger told the BBC that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed had not been killed, contradicting Wednesday's reports.

Ambassador Michael Ranneberger also strongly denied reports that a number of civilians had died in the attack.

Washington has dismissed criticism of its first overt military action in Somalia since 1994, saying it was necessary to defend the US and the international community from further al-Qaeda attacks.

Kenyan intelligence sources said on Wednesday that Mr Mohammed's wife and the wife of Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, also wanted by the FBI for an attack in East Africa in 2002, had been arrested in Kenya after fleeing the coastal Somali town of Ras Kamboni.

The US government is offering a $5 million reward for the capture of Mr Mohammed.

The Islamists took control of much of southern Somalia last year before being routed by Ethiopian and Somali government forces in recent weeks.

Since taking control of the capital, Mogadishu, BBC reporter Ahmed Idawaqaca says security forces have arrested about 40 Ethiopians of Oromo origin, killing one of them. Another Oromo person has been killed in Jowhar in a similar round-up.

Oromo refugees have been living in the country for the last 14 years after Oromo rebels took up arms against the Addis Ababa government.

'Inclusive government'

A local Somali MP said 27 civilians had died in recent air strikes near Afmadow.

But Mr Ranneberger denied this.


HAVE YOUR SAY
I cannot believe the US has launched air strikes against Somalia
Nimco Hussein

"It's been troubling to see these reports about bombing and all these activities killing civilians, I can tell you categorically that no civilians were killed or injured as a result of that action," he said.

Residents of Afmadow town and Ras Kamboni reported further attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday but Mr Ranneberger said these had not been carried out by US forces.

Reports suggest Ethiopian MiG fighters and helicopter gunships seen in the city of Kismayo may be involved.

Ethiopian forces have been at the forefront of the drive against Somalia's Islamists, who deny charges they had been sheltering al-Qaeda operatives.

Mr Ranneberger also said the US would support moderate Islamists participating in a Somali government of national unity, as long as they rejected violence.

"We think that all Somalis who renounce violence and extremism have a role to play in the future of the country," he said.

Bodies

On Wednesday, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said several terror suspects had been either killed or captured in the strikes.

He told reporters Ethiopian forces had gone to the scene of Monday's US raid and collected the dead and wounded.

He said those killed "may have involved very senior Islamist court leaders".

The UK Foreign Office is currently investigating reports that Britons are among those killed in the fighting after Somali officials said they had found a variety of international passports on the bodies of dead Islamist fighters.

The United Nations Security Council on Wednesday again backed plans to send African peacekeepers into Somalia to help protect the transitional government, enabling Ethiopian forces to withdraw.

The initiative was agreed before the Union of Islamic Courts' militia were ousted by Ethiopian-backed government forces.

The Security Council also supported sending a UN humanitarian mission to the Kenya-Somalia border.

Aid workers report that more 1,000 people have been wounded since fighting erupted in December.

However, there is no reliable information on casualties in the current fighting in the remote south.

Correspondents say the situation on the ground in southern Somalia remains unclear, with communications in the area poor.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/africa/6251077.stm

Published: 2007/01/11 13:53:04 GMT

Oops?

 

[not really ken]

they use sweatshops to make those

When Jokerman does it it's funny, leave it to him!

 

[goymz]

What troubles me is when the news reports on Somalia say things like 'The Union of Islamic Courts in Somalia was ejected from the capital in a couple of days,' 'The Ethopian troops quickly secured Mogadishu' or however it's been said, it translates more accurately to 'thousands of children with automatic weapons were killed.'