US Air Force Bombs Southern Somalia Using AC-130 Gunships

[Castro]

^ Governments are different than people Alle-ubaahnow. Look at Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan. Over 100 million Muslims in those 3 countries but their governments foreign policies are more hawkish than some European countries. Governments hardly ever represent their populations. America and Ethiopia are no different. Just look at Yeey. Does he represent the Somalis? If so, let him walk down the street without an army of protection.

 

Saaxib emotions aside, peoples of most countries have zero influence over their governments who tend to cater to the elite of the society.

[Alle-ubaahne]

^^I agree, Castrooow, indeed. and I really understand that more decent Americans have tremendous sympathy for the suffering of those victimized nations by the U.S. and its allies, with the feeling of huminty in their hearts. I appreciate those people wherever they are and whoever they are. I always distinguish the bad person in any country from the good people in the country.

 

But what is very outstanding is the fact that america has grown more hostile than ever, by even transgressing its own populations for the interest of the big corporations and the elite people, let alone those in the far away worlds.

 

But surely Allah will punish them for their grandious crimes against everybody!

[Castro]

More details about the US operation. It seems they missed their target.

 

U.S. moves against Al-Qaida suspects in Somalia

 

By Josh Meyer, Times Staff Writer

6:42 PM PST, January 8, 2007

 

 

Washington -- Under cover of the Ethiopian move into Somalia, U.S. officials launched an intensive effort to capture or kill three key suspects in the bombings of U.S. embassies in African more than eight years ago that killed 224 people.

 

Monday, a U.S. Air Force Special Operations gunship struck a location in southern Somalia where the suspects were believed to be hiding, a U.S. defense official said. U.S. military and counter-terrorism officials said they did not yet know whether any of the three fugitives had been killed.

 

"It's not clear what the outcome is at this point," said the counter-terrorism official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the operation was classified.

 

U.S. officials have secretly been negotiating with Somalian clans who are believed to have sheltered the three men, hoping to obtain information about their locations. It could not be determined Monday whether the airstrike was based on information provided by the clans.

 

The U.S. AC-130 gunship that carried out the strike was based in Djibouti, just north of Somalia. The strike was first reported by CBS News and independently confirmed by the Los Angeles Times.

 

CIA, FBI and military teams have been tracking the men, particularly their alleged leader, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, for years, but they have proved elusive. U.S. officials and their African and European allies in the negotiations believe that one Somalian sub-clan in particular has been harboring Mohammed and his associates, whom the U.S. describes as the leaders of an East Africa al-Qaida cell. Mohammed, a native of the Indian Ocean island nation of Comoros, faces terrorism charges in the United States that could bring a death penalty if he is captured and convicted.

 

Intelligence gathered over the past week indicates that Mohammed and aides Abu Talha al Sudani and Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan recently fled their haven in Mogadishu and headed for the Kenyan border as Ethiopian troops entered the capital and routed the Islamic militias which controlled it.

 

The three men might be trying to sneak across the border with false identification papers or by sea on one of the hundreds of fishing dhows that ply the coastal waters. But U.S. officials believe the suspects might also be staying put somewhere in Somalia, hoping to disappear into the lawless and ungoverned expanses of territory where they could still receive protection from clan leaders.

 

In any case, U.S. officials believe that influential members of the Ayr sub-clan, which they say has sheltered the three, are in touch with the fugitives and could exert some pull in getting them turned over to authorities. At the very least, clan members could provide their pursuers with detailed intelligence about where the men might go and who else within their network of extremists might be hiding them, according to several U.S. counter-terrorism and diplomatic officials familiar with the negotiations.

 

"We are working through the clans to get at these people," one U.S. diplomatic official said. "That's a political reality in Somalia. The clan is the biggest institution, as much as there are any institutions."

 

A senior U.S. counter-terrorism official said U.S. teams or even Ethiopian troops would not be successful in finding or apprehending the suspects without the assistance of the clan protecting them -- at least not without a bloody fight.

 

But negotiations with the militant Ayr sub-clan could raise questions about whether the Bush administration is bargaining with terrorists or those harboring them. The U.S. diplomatic official denied that, saying that engaging the groups, either directly or through intermediaries, was the only realistic way of gathering useful intelligence on the men.

 

Mohammed, who has a $5-million U.S. bounty on his head, was indicted in 1998 by a federal grand jury along with Osama bin Laden and others for his alleged role in the embassy bombings. U.S. officials also accuse the three fugitives of involvement in the 2002 bombing of a Kenyan hotel in which 15 people were killed and an attempt to shoot down an Israeli civilian airliner in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa. It remains unclear whether U.S. authorities would take them into custody if they are captured, because Kenya and some other countries also have expressed an interest in trying them.

 

Officials said they could not discuss the details of the negotiations, saying they are extremely sensitive and being conducted at a particularly delicate time, as the International Contact Group on Somalia works to disarm the various Somali factions and provide foreign aid.

 

U.S. officials described the hunt for the al-Qaida operatives as confounding, as they try to figure out who can speak for the clan, whom to trust and who can deliver intelligence on the al- Qaida men or actually hand them over to authorities.

 

One of those intermediaries is apparently Somalian Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi, who held a closed-door meeting Jan. 2 with leaders of the Ayr sub-clan at a Mogadishu hotel and requested that they hand over their weapons and support the transitional government that has received support from the international community.

 

John Prendergast, a former Africa policy official in the Clinton National Security Council and State Department, said he was skeptical of the behind-the-scenes negotiations.

 

Prendergast, who visits Somalia frequently as a senior adviser at the nonprofit International Crisis Group, said the Somali clans are deeply mistrustful of the Bush administration, particularly because of clandestine efforts by the CIA to fund some warlords and undermine the authority of others.

 

Also, Prendergast said, while clan members might support the al-Qaida operatives, they don't control them and are extremely unlikely to engage in any kind of betrayal of them unless other powerful Somali clans and political leaders promised them a significant prize in return.

 

LA Times

[Wisdom_Seeker]

They have killed 200 people, and they were only looking for 'THREE'.

 

May they all rest in peace.

[Naxar Nugaaleed]

^^^ Hate has a good record of destroying the hater then the hated.

[Castro]

^ If you work that head of yours just a little more, walaahi you'd come across much better than a simple person. I guarantee it atheer. Try it.

 

Originally posted by mystic:

They have killed 200 people, and they were only looking for 'THREE'.

 

May they all rest in peace.

I don't think any casualty figures were known or released. Though AC-130's are not known for precision bombing of any sort.

 

May Allah forgive the sins of the dead and ease the pain of the living.

[Wisdom_Seeker]

Originally posted by Naxar Nugaaleed:

^^^ Hate has a good record of destroying the hater then the hated.

I liked you when you were only making counterfeit condemnations, not when you are trying to create your own maxim.

 

Besides the hater is hated by most people. No one likes a hater

[Libaax-Sankataabte]

I woudn't be taken aback if this is part of a coordinated exertion to take the pressure off US military in Iraq and create by design another façade front for "al-qaeda" in some far away land. Somalia fits right in the "unfriendly" yet “feeble" category for US war games.

[Castro]

^ Specially now that in a couple of days 20,000 more troops to Iraq will be announced. Who knows?

 

You're spot on, however, Somalia is indeed feeble and "unfriendly".

[Jacaylbaro]

Isn't Djibouti Somali ???? ,,,,,,, see now ??? nobody care anybody ,,,,, Iraq was destroyed by US jets using some bases in Qatar and Kuwait ,,,,,, now they are bombing Somalia using their bases in Djibouti ,,,,,, does that make any sense ????????????

[xiinfaniin]

And yet some would attempt to spin this disturbing event and make it a shining success for Somalia!

[Castro]

^No one has attempted to spin this yet. There's nothing to spin. There are also many casualties reported. Here's more info (with video):

 

The AC-130 gunship is capable of firing thousands of rounds per second, and sources say a lot of bodies were seen on the ground after the strike, but there is as yet, no confirmation of the identities.

 

 

CBS Video

[Castro]

LSK, this is for you. LOL.

 

Troop Surge and Somalia Airstrike Coincidental?

 

Is it just me or is that air strike in Somalia on Monday timed way too coincidentally close to the Bush speech Wednesday night, announcing the troop surge in Iraq? You know, to remind us all about the 'global war on terror'. Us against them. With us or against us. Is it me? Am I that jaded? Probably.

 

Source

[N.O.R.F]

Illahay hauwada naxaristo, amiin. Sad indeed, i didnt catch the news last night but my anger is not towards the gaals but the gaal raacs.

[Libaax-Sankataabte]

Subhanalah. Ilaahyoow ummadaada u hiili. Castro, any "somali" word on casualty?