US air strikes kill 7 in Somalia
U.S. air strikes in Somalia killed seven people.
Somali officials believed the dead included Al Qaeda operative Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, reputed mastermind of the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, but U.S. officials said they were still chasing him.
The air assault has been criticized internationally, with the African Union, European Union and United Nations among those expressing concern. Britain was okay with it.
U.S. operations there were not over, a senior U.S. official said. He said they were focused solely on tracking down men involved in international terrorism and not Somali Islamic fundamentalists who had challenged Somalia’s internationally recognized government for power and were accused of harboring al Qaeda suspects. The official in Kenya was authorized to speak only on condition of anonymity.
Somali lawmaker Abdulrashid Hidig said the U.S. launched a new airstrike Wednesday around Ras Kamboni, a rugged coastal area a few miles from the Kenyan border where Monday’s attack took place. He cited the Somali military as the source of the information.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told reporters in his country’s capital, Addis Ababa, that eight suspected terrorists were killed in Monday’s airstrike, five were wounded and taken into custody by Ethiopian forces, and seven escaped.
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