More US air raids in Somalia, UN chief warns of increased hostilities

[N.O.R.F]

UN raises Somalia bombing concerns

 

The United Nations secretary-general has expressed concern that US air strikes in southern Somalia could increase hostilities and harm civilians.

 

Ban Ki-moon's warning came as The Associated Press news agency reported more US attacks on suspected al-Qaeda fighters in the country on Tuesday.

 

A US intelligence official said that five to 10 people were killed in the latest attack.

 

"The secretary-general is concerned about the new dimension this kind of action could introduce to the conflict and the possible escalation of hostilities that may result," a UN spokeswoman said.

 

A Somali politician said 31 civilians, including a newlywed couple, died in Tuesday's assault by two helicopters near Afmadow , a town in an area of forested hills near the Kenyan border 350km southwest of the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

 

A Somali defense ministry official described the helicopters as American, but the local witnesses told The Associated Press they could not make out the identification markings on the aircraft.

 

Washington officials had no comment on the reported air assault.

 

Al-Qaeda targeted

 

US forces carried out an air strike in southern Somalia on Monday, targeting what it believed to be the "principal" al-Qaeda leadership in the area.

 

A US intelligence official told Reuters news agency that an al-Qaeda member suspected of involvement in the 1998 bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania may have been killed in the raid.

 

 

"We don't know which one is the one at the moment," the official said. "I don't think we got all three. Of the senior guys, people are looking at one."

 

Colonel Shino Moalin Nur, a Somali military commander, told The Associated Press that at least one AC-130 gunship had attacked a suspected training camp on a remote island at the southern tip of Somalia. Somali officials said they had reports of many deaths.

 

US defence department officials, speaking privately on Tuesday, suggested that the military was either planning or considering additional strikes in Somalia.

 

'Hunting suspects'

 

With the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D Eisenhower now positioned off Somalia's coast, commanders can call in strikes from fixed-wing aircraft such as the FA-18. Defence department officials said that, as of Tuesday, no carrier-based aircraft had conducted strikes in Somalia.

 

Abdullahi Yusuf, the Somali president, said the US was hunting suspects in the 1998 embassy bombings and had his support.

 

Meanwhile, Somalia's deputy prime minister has called for US special forces to enter Somalia to flush out al-Qaeda suspects.

 

"The only way we are going to kill or capture the surviving al-Qaeda terrorists is for US special forces to go in on the ground," Hussein Aideed told The Associated Press. "They have the know-how and the right equipment to capture these people."

 

Aideed, a former US marine, said that underground bunkers have been dug in virtually inaccessible areas of the country making it almost impossible to capture them.

 

African peacekeepers

 

The UN secretary-general has also called for the speedy deployment of African peacekeepers to the country, and welcomed Ethiopia's statement that it intends to withdraw its forces "expeditiously".

 

Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, said he told Ban on Monday that a UN peacekeeping force may be needed to guarantee security and stability in Somalia, which has not had a functioning government for 15 years.

 

Solana said Ugandan forces may be the first deployed to replace Ethiopian troops, but he said the African Union is already carrying a "very heavy" peacekeeping burden in Sudan, and the United Nations may have to step in instead of the AU and take over the next phase.

 

On December 6, the UN Security Council authorised an African force to protect the transitional government against the Union of Islamic Courts, which had taken control of the capital and most of southern Somalia. The council also committed to training Somali government troops, and lifted a UN arms embargo for the African troops.

 

The UN spokeswoman was asked by reporters whether the US bombing violated the arms embargo. She said the council would be discussing Somalia on Wednesday and that the UN is trying to gather more information about the action in southern Somalia.

 

AJE

[LANDER]

^Norf, on top of the three US warships they now have an aircraft carrier on the southern somali coast which only means more fire power. You've gotta wonder if this was all ment to coincide with Bush's key note address last night otherwise how can a few isolated fighters warrant this many resources?

[N.O.R.F]

^^Get people thinking of the war on terror again to justify more troops for Iraq? Somalia/Somalis just happen to be the nearest card to play.

 

Comments on CiF

 

So it's all about al-Quaida, is it ? Where I'm sitting, I see another U.S. terrorist outrage in a country too weak and self-riven to do anything about an act of war wrought against it, garnering only the snivelling of an impotent Somali 'government' to the effect that the U.S. has the right to do whatever the hell it likes in what I would have thought that 'government' should thought was its own sovereign territory. (With a government like that, who wonders that the Islamic Courts appear attractive to many Somalis ?)

 

Let's count up the bodies first before the likes of the contemptibly-monikered 'jihadisbad' start another act of worship of the US. Such as (s)he, I know, probably believe not only that might is right, but thast might is might because it is right. Let's remember the numberless innocent killed in countries all around the world in the name of the American empire, the Afghani wedding parties wiped out by warplanes, the endless show detentions in Guantanamo Bay, the whole unceasing rollcall of atrocities.

 

These are two rural villages in one of the poorest countries in the world. Do we expect in the days to come to see perfectly laid-out lines of 'islamofascists' (or whatever the mot du jour for non-whites killed by Americans is) triumphantly displayed for an acquiescent world press, or will it be the same hurried shuffled out of sight bodies of old men and women, children, and anybody else the promiscuous terrorist acts have destroyed ?

 

Shame on the Guardian for its unquestioning parroting of the dominant terrorist line. But then these are only non-Whites in a lawless poverty-stricken far-off corner of the world, eh ? Not really people like Westerners.

 

"Al-Qa'eda" is just a generalised excuse for whatever terrorist atrocity the US is currently perpetrating, whether against Ba'athist secularism, Lebanese civil defense or Afghanistan's uncooperative Pashtuns on behalf of oil interests. It amazes me that anyone still swallows it.

 

Well Simon, your first two paragraphs read like a White House press release (which they probably are).

 

Combined with the renewed enthusiasm for war that the Observer editorial indicated last Sunday (which definitely WAS at least indistinguishable from a White press release) - may we conclude that the Guardian is back on board with the War Effort?

 

I'm curious as to what your attitude to the civilians reported killed in Somalia by the US missiles might be?

 

More fawning acquiescence to butchery?

 

Or would you be equally supportive of some Somalia who decides to retaliate, US-style, for his dismembered family in, say, New York?

 

Or perhaps you share the Anglo-Zionist attitude to dark-skinned Muslims as being somewhere between man and monkey in terms of legal rights? (This is mere speculation as I have only your written words to guide me).

 

Oh yes CiF censors, feel free to zap this if the TRUTH is too hot to handle.

 

It appears that we are all "Suspects" in the eyes of the paranoid Bush Administration.

Just as in the Vietmam War, where the policy was "The only Good Gook is a Dead Gook" , we now have "The only Innocent Suspect is a Dead Suspect".

They are slaughtering innocent people by aerial bombardment now, how long before they repeat the atrocity of using Agent Orange.

They certainly are experts in the field of "Losing Friends and Gaining Enemies"

 

I'm waiting for Mr Bashir Goth's (hate to make him famous)response on this!