Attacks against al-Qaida continue in Somalia

[frigidmagi]

MSN

[quote]MOGADISHU, Somalia - Helicopter gunships launched new attacks Tuesday against suspected al-Qaida members, a Somali official said, a day after American forces launched airstrikes in the first offensive in the African country since 18 U.S. troops were killed there in 1993.

Witnesses said 31 civilians, including two newlyweds, died in Tuesday’s assault by two helicopters near Afmadow, a town in an area of forested hills close to the Kenyan border 220 miles southwest of Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu. The report could not be independently verified.

The official, lawmaker Abdiqadir Daqane, described the helicopters as American, but local witnesses told The Associated Press they could not make out identification markings on the craft. Washington officials had no comment.

Attacks in Mogadishu
Also Tuesday, unknown assailants fired rocket-propelled grenades at a building in Mogadishu housing Ethiopian and Somali troops.

A Reuters reporter heard two explosions followed by five minutes of automatic weapons-fire, and later, sporadic shots.

It was not immediately clear if anyone was hurt in the attack, which a witness from a neighboring hotel confirmed had struck the building patrolled by Somali troops.

On Monday, at least one U.S. AC-130 gunship attacked Islamic extremists in Hayi, 30 miles from Afmadow, and on a remote island 155 miles away believed to be an al-Qaida training camp at the southern tip of Somalia next to Kenya. Somali officials said they had reports of many deaths.

The Pentagon confirmed the strike and a U.S. intelligence official said Tuesday that it was believed to have killed one of three al-Qaida members suspected in the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

"We don't know which one is the one at the moment," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "I don't think we got all three. Of the senior guys, people are looking at one."

Target killed?
The main target of Monday's strike reportedly was Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind the 1998 attacks on the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed 225 people.

The Washington Post reported that Fazul, described by U.S. officials as the director al-Qaida operations in East Africa, was killed in the initial attack. The source was Abdirizak Hassan, chief of staff for Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi, who said he heard of Fazul’s death from U.S. officials.

Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf told journalists that the U.S. “has a right to bombard terrorist suspects who attacked its embassies.â€