US denies involvement as more air strikes hit Somalia

Published on 11/01/2007 01:20

REPORTS of more US air strikes against al-Qaeda targets in Somalia were denied by Washington and Ethiopia yesterday.

A Somali government source and a local official said US planes struck several sites on Wednesday after an assault on Monday against a village where the suspects were thought to be hiding.

But officials in Washington, who confirmed Monday's assault, denied there had been more strikes. US government sources said Ethiopia, which defeated Islamic forces in a lightning war last month, had conducted further air strikes.

Meles Zenawi, the Ethiopian prime minister, also said there had been only one US air attack and no civilian casualties.

"There was only one strike ... against what they called the target of opportunity. They knew where the target was and they suspected that the target would move and they would miss the opportunity unless they acted quickly," he said.

The US actions were defended by Abdullahi Yusuf, the Somali president, and by Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, but have been criticised by Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general of the United Nations, and by France and the European Union.

Criticism has also come from Italy, the former colonial ruler of Somalia, Egypt and the Arab League.

Mr Meles told a news conference Ethiopian soldiers had gone to the site of the US attack. Eight "terrorists" were killed, five captured and seven escaped, he said.

Abdirashid Mohamed Hidig, a member of the Somali government said, after touring the region in an Ethiopian helicopter, that at least 50 people were killed by US and Ethiopian air strikes.

Another Somali government source said four new US strikes hit areas near Ras Kamboni, a coastal village close to the Kenyan border long thought by Western and east African intelligence agencies to be a hideout and training camp for Islamic militants.

The areas struck were Hayo, Garer, Bankajirow and Badmadow, he said. "Bankajirow was the last Islamist holdout. Bankajirow and Badmadow were hit hardest."

Mr Hidig told reporters: "Yesterday I personally saw the planes striking. The air strikes resumed this morning."

US officials said Monday's strike targeted an al-Qaeda cell that includes suspects in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and a 2002 attack on an Israeli-owned Kenyan hotel.

Michele Montas, a spokeswoman for the UN said: "The secretary general is concerned about the new dimension this kind of action could introduce to the conflict and the possible escalation of hostilities that may result."

In Monday's US attack a Spectre gunship was believed to have killed one of three al-Qaeda suspects wanted for the embassy bombings, a US intelligence official said.

Washington is seeking a handful of al-Qaeda members including Abu Talha al-Sudani, a Sudanese who US intelligence believes is the network's east Africa boss, and Comorian Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, on the FBI's most wanted terrorist list.

The FBI has offered 3 million for the capture of Mohammed, indicted in a US court for his alleged role in the embassy bombings.