US strikes in Somalia killed 70 civilians

The international aid agency Oxfam has confirmed the deaths of at least 70 Somali nomads killed in the US air strikes in the Afmadow district near the border with Kenya on Jan. 8. The nomads were bombed while searching for water sources. Oxfam–which had received reports from its Somali partner organizations about the herdsmen's deaths–and Amnesty International have asked whether the air strikes violated international law. "Under international law, there is a duty to distinguish between military and civilian targets," said Paul Smith-Lomas, Oxfam's regional director. "We are deeply concerned that this principle is not being adhered to, and that innocent people in Somalia are paying the price." The UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, reported that an estimated 100 people were wounded in the strikes on the small fishing village of Ras Kamboni launched from the US military base in Djibouti. The strike was criticized by the European Commission, as well as the Arab League which claimed it had killed "many innocent victims" and demanded that Washington refrain from further attacks. The operation was only confirmed by the Pentagon a day after it was launched and it continued despite international protests and warnings that it risked being counterproductive. Concern has been mounting at the high number of civilian casualties, despite a claim by the US ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, that no civilians had been killed or injured and that only one attack had taken place. Meanwhile, Ranneberger has acknowledged that the onslaught on Islamic militants failed to kill any of the three prime targets wanted for their alleged role in the 1998 US embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. After widespread publicity over claims that a "surgical" attack had killed Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, allegedly involved with the bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi, it emerged that neither he, nor two other suspects, Abu Taiha al-Sudani and Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, were among the dead. According to military strategists, recent US military operations in Somalia are a blueprint that Pentagon officials say they hope to use more frequently in counterterrorism missions around the globe. Military officials said the strike by the US gunship in southern Somalia showed that even with the departure of Donald Rumsfeld from the Pentagon, Special Operations troops intended to take advantage of the directive given to them by the former secretary of defense in the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks. US officials said the recent military operations have been carried by the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations Command, which directs the military's most secretive and elite units, like the Army's Delta Force. The Pentagon established a desolate outpost in the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti in 2002 in part to serve as a hub for Special Operations missions to capture or kill senior al-Qaida leaders in the region. Few such "high value" targets have materialized, and the Pentagon has gradually relocated members of the covert Special Operations units to more urgent missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told members of Congress on Friday that the strike in Somalia was executed under the Pentagon's authority to hunt and kill terrorism suspects around the globe, a power the White House gave it shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. It was this authority that Rumsfeld used to order commanders to develop plans for using US Special Operations troops for missions within countries that had not been declared war zones. Some critics of the Pentagon's aggressive use of Special Operations troops, including some Democratic members of Congress, have argued that using US forces outside of declared combat zones gives the Pentagon too much authority in sovereign nations and blurs the lines between soldiers and spies. The Somali operation, which opened a new front in Washington's anti-terror campaign, seems to have backfired spectacularly since it was launched. In addition to the scores of Somali civilians killed, the simmering civil war in the failed state has been rekindled. Somalia's main warlords appeared to agree to disarm their militias and form a new national army on Jan. 12. But as the warlords met with the Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf, gun battles raged outside the presidential villa underlining the scale of the security problems. Fighting in Mogadishu claimed the lives of at least six militia men after a clash with troops. The following day, Somalia's parliament voted to declare three months of martial law. Members of parliament sitting in the provincial town of Baidoa voted 154 to two to ratify Prime Minister Ali Mohamad Ghedi's plan to restore order in the war-ravaged state. Martial law will allow the president to issue decrees on matters of national security, ban unlawful demonstrations and outlaw the spreading of propaganda.