Government denial, but new Somalia airstrikes reported

Jan 10, 2007, 17:17 GMT

Mogadishu/Nairobi - The Somali interim government on Wednesday denied claims of new airstrikes in the Kenyan border region, amid further reports indicating a US military presence in the country more extensive than had previously been thought.

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 had 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.

US newspaper The Boston Globe in a report citing unnamed military sources meanwhile said that US special forces alongside Somali, Ethiopian and Kenyan troops had been conducting joint operations on the ground in the region for the past fortnight.

US warships among them the aircraft carrier Dwight D Eisenhower were according to the Globe deployed off the Somali coast to prevent Islamists fleeing by sea.

Officials told the newspaper that Washington sees the present campaign against the Somali Islamists as an opportunity to track wanted militants and to prevent the country from becoming a safe haven for Islamists linked to the al-Qaeda terror network.

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.

The US government has backed efforts to deploy an African Union (AU) peacekeeping force in Somalia to prevent the formation of a power vacuum following the withdrawal of the Ethiopians. Uganda has already pledged 1,500 for such a force.

Kenyan Foreign Minister Raphael Tuju was meanwhile engaged in visits to other African countries in a bid to secure more troops.

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 have not yet been defeated, but are continuing to attack the interim government and its Ethiopian allies which at the end of December launched a military campaign to dislodge the UIC from its position of power.