US air strikes 'kill many' Somalis

The United States has launched air strikes against Islamic fundamentalists in southern Somalia, confirming the country's status as a new frontline in Washington's "war on terror." Many people died in an AC130 warplane air strike on Jan. 8 by US Special Forces in a southern Somali village populated by Muslims, who Somali government officials claimed were sheltering three al-Qaida suspects. "I understand there are so many dead bodies and animals in the village," a Somali official told Reuters. Helicopter gunships launched new attacks on Jan. 9 near the scene of a US air strike in the village of Hayi. Ras Kamboni was also said to have been hit. Two helicopters "fired several rockets toward the road that leads to the Kenyan border," said Ali Seed Yusuf, a resident of the town of Afmadow in southern Somalia. Witnesses said at least four civilians were killed in one of the airstrikes. "My 4-year-old boy was killed in the strike," said Mohamed Mahmud Burale. "We don't know how many people were killed in the attack but we understand there were a lot of casualties," government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said. Local Member of Parliament Abdulkadir Haji Mohamoud Dhagane told the BBC that 27 people, mostly civilians, were killed near Afmadow. "Thousands of Somalis are caught between a rock and a hard place as they are in the middle of air strikes, Ethiopian tanks and the Kenyan soldiers who have blocked the border," he said. Other witnesses said 31 civilians, including two newlyweds, died in the assault by two helicopters near Afmadow. On Jan. 10, four places were hit–Hayo, Garer, Bankajirow and Badmadowe. Abdirashid Mohamed Hidig, a member of Somalia's transitional parliament who represents the border area, said at least 50 people were killed in strikes he said were carried out by US and Ethiopian planes. "The worst loss has befallen civilians since the fleeing Islamists are hiding among the people there," he said. Senior US and French military sources said US Special Forces, including a significant CIA presence, are working with Ethiopian troops on the ground as well. The aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived off Somalia's coast and launched intelligence-gathering missions over Somalia, the military said. Three other US warships are conducting what are being vaguely referred to as "anti-terror operations" off the Somali coast. The Associated Press, New York Times, Reuters, CNN and other news media are stating as fact that "US warships have been seeking to capture al-Qaida members thought to be fleeing Somalia" after Ethiopia invaded on Dec. 24 in an effort to drive out the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) from Mogadishu and toward the Kenyan border. These reports are unsubstantiated and there is little evidence that al-Qaida has any presence in Somalia. Washington has named the three main suspects as Comorian Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Kenyan Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan and Abu Taha al-Sudani of Sudan. Mohammed allegedly planned the 1998 attacks on the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed 225 people. The UIC, however, deny any links to al-Qaida, saying this charge is an invention to justify intervention in Somalia. Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf told journalists that the US "has a right to bombard terrorist suspects who attacked its embassies." But others in the capital said the attacks would only increase anti-US sentiment in the largely Muslim country. The transitional government has been accused of being a pawn for Ethiopia and the United States, both roundly disliked and viewed with suspicion by many Somalis. In Mogadishu, Somalis calling in to radio shows have almost universally condemned the US airstrikes. "US involvement in the fighting in our country is completely wrong," said Sahro Ahmed, a 37-year-old mother of five. Initially the US had tried to capture the alleged suspects with the help of warlords that had ruled Mogadishu from 1991 until the UIC took control last year. In 2005, the CIA paid the hated warlords several hundred thousand dollars as an incentive to apprehend the suspects who, according to Washington, were being sheltered by the UIC that had been set up to dispense justice in the absence of a central authority. But as news of the US operation leaked to the streets, residents took the side of the UIC and helped drive the warlords from the capital. Many people in predominantly Muslim Somalia resent 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. Ethiopian forces had invaded Somalia to oust the popular Islamic movement that had wrested power from a weak and essentially non-functioning government. Ethiopian troops, tanks and warplanes took just 10 days to drive the UIC from the capital, Mogadishu, and other key towns. In recent days, the presence of Ethiopian troops has stirred both nationalist and religious fervor in mainly Muslim Somalia, with a series of protests and small attacks on Ethiopian troops. Gunshots and riots rocked Somalia's capital on Jan. 6 as Ethiopian troops clashed with Somalian protesters. A 13-year-old Somalian boy was killed. Anonymous pamphlets distributed in some neighborhoods warned locals to steer clear of Ethiopian and allied soldiers from Somalia's transitional government. The pamphlets pledged guerrilla tactics and suicide attacks. Richard Cornwell, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, said the air strikes showed that cooperation between Ethiopia and the US over the Somalia incursion had been far closer than was previously admitted and was critical of the manner of the attack. "The AC130 is an appallingly blunt instrument and I very much doubt it can be used to target individuals," he said. "To kill alleged terrorists regardless of collateral damage is highly hypocritical."