US Messiles Attack on Dhoobley

[Jacaylbaro]

KISMAYU, Somalia, March 3 (Reuters) - Two missiles hit a makeshift house in a remote area of southern Somalia on Monday and local officials and witnesses said they believed it was a U.S. air strike against Islamist insurgents.

 

If confirmed, it would be at least the fourth U.S. air strike on Somalia in 14 months.

 

Residents of Dobley, a Somali town 220 km (140 miles) from the southern port city of Kismayu on the Kenyan border, believe the missiles were targeting senior Islamist leaders meeting nearby.

 

"Two U.S missiles hit a house in Dobley early this morning," one local politician, who asked not to be named, told Reuters by telephone, adding that shrapnel from the missiles had been found. "The missiles have U.S. markings."

 

The U.S. 5th Fleet in Bahrain and the Pentagon in Washington had no immediate information on the attack.

 

The politician said Sheikh Hassan Turki, a local militant cleric, and other leaders from a militant Islamist group from Mogadishu were meeting in the vicinity. The Islamists have been waging a bloody insurgency against Somali government forces.

 

"The town is very tense. People have started fleeing because they fear there might be more attacks," he said.

 

A man in Kismayu, who said the house belonged to him, told Reuters his daughter was injured and four of his cows killed in the attack.

 

"We do not know whether the missiles were fired by the American AC-130 plane which is still flying over the city. All we know is they dropped from the sky," Mohamed Nurie Salad told Reuters in Kismayu.

 

He said he was returning to Dobley to assess the damage, which he had been told about over the telephone.

 

On Jan. 8, 2007, a U.S. AC-130 gunship struck Islamists in southern Somalia in Washington's first overt military action there since pulling out of a U.N.-backed peacekeeping mission in 1994 after the "Black Hawk Down" incident.

 

That attack, and another with the same kind of airplane shortly thereafter, struck Islamists fleeing from Ethiopian and Somali troops who cornered them in southern Somalia during a two-week war to rout the militant movement.

 

On June 21, a U.S. Navy ship fired missiles at Islamist fighters and foreign jihadists hiding in the mountains in the northern Puntland region.

 

The United States accuses Somali Islamist insurgents of harbouring al Qaeda fugitives responsible for planning and executing the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

 

It provided intelligence and some military support to Ethiopia's intervention to help the Somali interim government in late 2006.

 

The Horn of Africa country has had no central government since a dictator was overthrown in 1991. An interim government formed in 2004 is struggling to assert its authority and is battling the Islamists in the capital Mogadishu.

[Jacaylbaro]

US military confirms launched strike in So. Somalia

 

WASHINGTON, March 3 (Reuters) - The U.S. military targeted suspected "terrorists" in a strike launched early on Monday in Dobley, Somalia, a senior U.S. military official said.

 

The official, who declined to be named, told Reuters: "We launched a deliberate strike against a suspected bed-down of known terrorists."

 

He said it was too early to know what damage had been inflicted, including whether any people were injured or killed in the strike launched overnight Washington time (early morning GMT). The official declined to give details on the type of weapon used.

 

This was the fourth U.S. air strike on Somalia in 14 months.

 

Local officials and witnesses in Somalia said they believed two missiles hit a makeshift house in Dobley, a town in a remote area of southern Somalia about 140 miles (220 km) from the port city of Kismayu, in a U.S. air strike against Islamist insurgents.

[Faynuus]

So unfortunate, and we are told there is a goverment in Somalia. Dabodhilif aan damiir lahayn.

 

May Allah save somalia.

[Malika]

Originally posted by J.a.c.a.y.l.b.a.r.o:

He said it was too early to know what damage had been inflicted, including whether any people were injured or killed in the strike launched overnight Washington time (early morning GMT). The official declined to give details on the type of weapon used.

^Will it make a difference,if there is or there isnt any damage.The aim was and is clear to cause maximum damage! :mad:

[N.O.R.F]

Did the TFG even know about it? Or did they find out the through the media again?

[Jacaylbaro]

They will come and say they don't know ,,,,,,,,,

[Fabregas]

This could be a regular thing in that part of the woods.........

[Blessed]

I was reading about the detention centres in Afghanistan where the US kept and tortured their abductees and one of the rooms is named after Somalia. I guess, many innocent people are being made to pay for their incompetence.

 

It is noteworthy that the missile attack on Somalia comes little more than a week after Bush’s tour of Africa. In many ways, Somalia represents a model for American strategy in the region, based on the use of the armies of African regimes as surrogates, aided and directed by US forces, to secure Washington’s interests. This strategy has been developed since the US military was driven out of Somalia in 1993 in the well-known “Black Hawk down” incident, which claimed the lives of 19 American troops. It is now being employed in alliance with some of the same warlords that the US forces were fighting 15 years ago.

 

 

The aim of the White House and the Pentagon is to develop its new African military command—Africom—to apply this same brutal strategy throughout the continent in a bid to secure American control of key oil and other natural resources and to beat back the incursions of US capitalism’s increasingly important competitor in the region, China.

rest of article.

[LayZie G.]

LoL@"did the TFG know"

 

I think the TFG found out about the same time as I have, over breakfast on "goodmorning america".

[Nephissa]

This totally screws any progress of peace.

 

Originally posted by GJ_Goate:

This could be a regular thing in that part of the woods.........

not just in "that part of the wood" abti, in due time we shall see more US airstrikes in Xamar. I think this attack was just a way to cause the expected rages and retaliation of the Shabaabs in Mogdishu, and then have Ethiopia complain that they can't deal with such aggressive insurgency, extremists. Then the 'giant' comes to the rescue, levels the whole city to the ground for them.

 

Mark my words; it is now 10:58 Mar 4th, 08. I'll come back to this again. I'A.

 

@ 'did TFG know this?' I don't think they're that important to have a say in where, who or how their country gets bombed. I'm sure they're told to go outside, fly a kite when all the manly talks are taking place.

[NASSIR]

Isn't the TFG the government you completely deny its existence, then why question its legitimacy?

 

Somalia is just like Iraq, an ungoverned space where the state has no monopoly over the use of force in its entire borders. For instance, Turkey bombarded Kurdistan in its pursuit of PKK elements, an organization it considers a terrorist. Though it is a violation of Iraq's border integrity, the state of Iraq is still fragile and powerless to deal with conflicts inside its borders as it is hampered by ceaseless attacks from home-grown insurgents with foreign elements.

[LayZie G.]

lol@nephy, warkaaga waa run.

[Abdulladiif Al-Fiqih]

Waa yaabe reerka iyo farenjigu (gaalka Cad),

 

goormey coloobeen? Malaha Sayidkiibey reerka ku

 

daba socdaan.

[Lois Lane]

Caamir, Walaal

 

Please let us be clear on one thing. No one recognizes the legitimicay of the TFG. (Of course you have your followers who consider themelves men without ever knowing the meaning behind such term) However the one thing we can all recognize is the war crimes committed by this group of idiotic members and the ethiopian troops along with the american administration.

 

Now, rest assured walaal that peace will come back to every street of Somalia and this will be done in the presence of Somalia's ennemies, namely this TFG joke and its followers. Further, those that helped in the bloodbath of Somalia, will face justice!

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

Dadkeena maxee dhibaato dishay, quwado awood ifeed leh u awood sheegtay. Gaaljire tiisaba heysato la leeyahay waa 'argagaxiso.' Xaqdaro intaas la eh.