Somali government denies reports of new airstrikes

Jan 10, 2007, 14:21 GMT

Mogadishu/Nairobi - The Somali interim government on Wednesday denied eyewitness and media reports of a new series of airstrikes in the south of the country, following the confirmed US strike against suspected al-Qaeda militants on Sunday.

Government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari rejected witness reports which claimed the new strikes took place in the region of Ras Kamboni, a coastal area close to the Kenyan border which is believed to be one of the last strongholds of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) Islamist militias.

The United States has confirmed it carried out an airstrike on Sunday targeting suspected al-Qaeda terrorists in the border region. The Somali government said it has been informed of the strike and had granted its consent.

Witness reports however spoke of further airstrikes Monday and Tuesday across the region in which up to 60 people are said to have been killed. It was not clear however whether they were carried out by US or by Ethiopian fighter jets.

Unconfirmed reports said that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a leading al-Qaeda terrorist believed to be responsible for the 1998 attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, was among those killed in the Sunday strikes. The bombing of the US embassies killed more than 200 people, including 12 Americans.

Mohammed, 34, appears on the list of 'most wanted' terrorists maintained by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). A reward of up to 5 million dollars is offered for information leading directly to his apprehension or conviction.

Both the White House and the Pentagon have refused to confirm reports that Mohammed was among those killed in Sunday's strike. US government spokesman Tony Snow on Tuesday however said that Washington had the right to pursue al-Qaeda terrorists worldwide.

In the meantime no concrete information has been forthcoming on the number of civilians killed in the strike. Ethiopian military helicopters and fighter jets were Wednesday reported to be operating in the locale.

US newspaper the Boston Globe in a report citing unnamed military sources meanwhile said that a joint operation involving Somali, Ethiopian and Kenyan troops along with US special forces had been ongoing in the region for the past fortnight.

The operation, seen by Washington as an opportunity to track wanted Islamist militants who had been harboured by the UIC, has seen the deployment of US special forces on the ground in Somalia, officials told the Globe.

Observers believe the US military presence in the region is also aimed at preventing Somalia from becoming a safe haven for Islamist militants.

Meanwhile three people, including civilians, were stated by witnesses to have been killed in an attack on an Ethiopian military base in Mogadishu Tuesday evening.

Unknown assailants had attacked the base in the south of the city with mortars. A gun fight had ensued. On Sunday in a similar incident, three other people were killed.

Observers fear that the UIC, recently driven out of the Somali capital, have not yet been defeated, but are continuing to launch attacks against the interim government and its Ethiopian allies.