US air strikes in Somalia continue

A US Air Force AC-130 gunship conducted an air strike in southern Somalia, US officials have said, while revealing few details on the latest incident involving US forces in the war-torn country. One US official said the targets were Union of Islamic Courts fighters, who once controlled much of Somalia but were defeated in a two-week war that started in late December. A second source said the target was an al-Qaida operative. There was no official confirmation of the strike from the Defense or State departments and no statement on whether anyone targeted was killed. A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment when he was asked by reporters about the incident, but alluded to the fact that US operations were still ongoing in Somalia. "We're going to go after al-Qaida and the global war on terror, wherever it takes us," said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman. "The very nature of some of our operations are not conducive to public discussions and there will be times when there are activities and operations that I can talk to you about and there will be other times when I just won't have anything for you," he said. "I don't have anything for you on Somalia." The operation followed a Jan. 7 air strike that killed at least 70 Somali civilians in the Afmadow district near the border with Kenya. The US air strikes in Somalia have been undertaken in close cooperation with Ethiopian forces, which have conducted their own ground and air assaults in the same area with shared intelligence and operational information. Word of the new US attack came the same day as a long line of Ethiopian artillery, armored vehicles and trucks loaded with soldiers rolled toward the edges of Mogadishu, beginning a withdrawal from a fragile capital that many residents fear will now slip further into chaos. Without the Ethiopian muscle, Somali officials have a "deep concern" about Islamic militants who remain hidden in the city and have asserted responsibility for a recent string of attacks against Ethiopian and Somali government troops. A spokesman for Somalia's transitional government, Abdirahman Dinari, said that the Ethiopians may take several weeks to complete a full withdrawal from the country and that a large force would remain on the Ethiopian side of the Somalia-Ethiopia border. Even with a strong Ethiopian military presence in Somalia, attacks have continued in Mogadishu. For two weeks, Ethiopian and Somali government troops have been hit with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades fired from cars. An Ethiopian soldier was killed and another seriously wounded after unknown gunmen opened fire on Ethiopian forces on Jan. 25 at a market in Kismayo, southern Somalia. Police also said they were interrogating a man over a mortar strike on Mogadishu international airport that injured five people. Militants fired four mortar rounds at an Ethiopian camp near Mogadishu the following day. It was not immediately clear if anyone was killed in the attack, which took place in Darmoley, six miles north of the seaside capital. Gunmen also attacked Somali police in northern Mogadishu on Jan. 28, leading to an hour-long battle that left two dead. Two police stations were hit a day earlier with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, wounding five people. Mogadishu has been in an almost perpetual state of clan warfare since the fall of the last central government, the military dictatorship of Mohamed Said Barre, in 1991. If Mogadishu descends into another period of clan warfare, some regional analysts say that such a scenario is precisely what Ethiopian Prime Minister Zenawi Meles wanted all along. As evidence, they point to an Ethiopian government foreign policy report submitted to that country's parliament two years ago. According to an English translation, Ethiopian security officials wrote that Somalia was so divided that it "no longer posed a threat" to Ethiopia. In December, Ethiopian forces routed the Islamic Courts militia from their strongholds across southern Somalia and installed a government in Mogadishu. US forces supported the campaign, training and supplying the Ethiopian army, mounting air raids on militia targets and stationing a US Navy aircraft carrier battle group off the Somali coast. Regional experts have questioned US involvement in Somalia, claiming that US air strikes may be ineffective in fighting terrorism and risk making the country's Muslim population more radical. "Somalia's tribal system is very strict," warned Africa expert Roland Marchal from the Paris-based Center for International Studies and Research. "If anyone gets hurt in your tribe, either you accept the price for the bloodshed or you kill the assailant." "These raids will be used to justify a mobilization against less efficient and less well-protected troops than US planes–ground troops from Ethiopia or elsewhere," he said. Marchal warned that the region was potentially facing increasing insecurity because of the US intervention, with foreign troops and international humanitarian workers becoming targets. Karin von Hippel, a former UN mission member in Somalia, sees sketchy intelligence as one of the key problems in the air raids. "Over the past decade, the US had very little intelligence in Somalia: they have very few people on the ground and they tend to believe allies that have local grievances," said Hippel, who works for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Experts believe that in Somalia's tribal-based society, with its close-knit solidarity, hundreds if not thousands can easily turn against the US after the death of innocent people in an air strike. "These air raids can only make the Islamic Tribunals more palatable for the people," said Francois Grignon, Africa program director of the International Crisis Group. "Collateral damage provokes hatred and fury among people who suffer from it, all the more so as the Americans have so far not given any proof of their victory: no terrorist leader has apparently been wiped out."