- Three of the world's most wanted terrorists are said to be among the Islamists hiding in the forests of southern Somalia, where several US airstrikes haves killed dozens of people. Local reports however indicate that mostly civilians fell victim to the raids as Somalis grow increasingly angry over the US intervention.
Washington today denied reports that it had launched further air attacks against the forested region of southern Somalia, along the Kenyan border. Residents however reported further raids today, while there are speculations that Ethiopian helicopters stood behind these operations.
Officials from the Somali, Ethiopian and US governments hold that the attacks on Hayo village near Afmadow town were aimed at killing highly profiled al Qaeda terrorists. The same sources for months have claimed to have proof that the Islamist movement that until recently ruled Mogadishu was sheltering these wanted terrorists.
The al Qaeda leaders supposedly hiding out around the village of Hayo include Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, who is said to have masterminded the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 persons. The Comoran-born Kenyan citizen is on the US' most-wanted list with a US$ 5 million reward for his capture.
Sudanese citizen Abu Talha al-Sudani - supposedly the leader of East Africa's al Qaeda network and in close cooperation with Osama bin Laden - is said to have been involved in several terrorist attacks and has lived in Somalia for at least ten years. Further, Kenyan citizen Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, who is put in connection to a 2002 terror attack on a hotel in Kenya, is to be among those hiding out in the forests.
According to Abdirisak Hassan - the chief of the Somali interim President's staff - the government had received reports that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed had been killed by the American air raid, Mogadishu-based reporter Ahmed Yusuf Mohamed told afrol News.
"I received this information from the US dairy of the targets and list of the damage done by the air bombardment," said Mr Hassan.
Also the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, said that several al Qaeda terrorists had been killed or captured in the airstrikes. He told the press in Addis Ababa that Ethiopian forces had gone to the scene of Monday's and yesterday's attacks and collected the dead and wounded.
US authorities, on the other hand, have not released detailed information on the airstrikes in Somalia. According to a Pentagon spokesperson, a US Air Force AC-130 gunship was used in an airstrike on 7 January to target the "principal al Qaeda leadership" operating in the southern part of Somalia. As there are no US troops on Somali soil - at least according to Washington -the Pentagon is not able to give detailed reports on the results of the raids.
Meanwhile, however, different reports are emerging from local residents, talking to Somali media. They claim that the bombardment mainly hit pastoralists gathered at a local waterhole and that a total of around 30 civilians had been killed in the raids. There had been no indications of Islamist militia fighters or al Qaeda leaders being hit by the strikes, these sources claim.
The Ethiopian Prime Minister, referring to reports from his troops at the ground, today denied the US strikes had killed civilians. On the contrary, Mr Zenawi said those killed "may have involved very senior [Somali] Islamist court leaders."
According to reporter Mohamed, Somalia's Islamist leaders remain holed up in a densely wooded area near the Kenyan border, fighting the Ethiopian-backed interim government forces. The difficult terrain was making it easy for the Islamists to find hideouts and difficult for the heavily armed Ethiopians to move around. The al Qaeda leaders were supposed to hide among these Somali Islamist fighters.
International criticism against the US airstrikes is growing. The human rights groups Amnesty today wrote to US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates, urgently requesting information about the airstrikes and an explanation of what measures were taken by US forces to avoid civilian casualties during the air attacks, following media reports that at least 30 civilians had been killed in these airstrikes.
"We are concerned that civilians may have been killed as a result of a failure to comply with international humanitarian law," said Claudio Cordone of Amnesty. "What we want to know from the US government is whether their forces took the necessary precautions to distinguish between civilians and combatants when they chose the means and methods of their attack."
Even UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed concern over the US airstrikes on Somalia, "particularly their humanitarian impact." His spokesman said Mr Ban was "concerned about the new dimension this kind of action could introduce to the conflict and the possible escalation of hostilities that may result."
Also among Somalis, a deeply rooted scepticism and anger with Washington is revived. Most Mogadishu residents have no confidence at all in the US, along with the Ethiopian troops now present in the Somali capital. The growing anger and distrust has been provoking several attacks on Ethiopian troops during the last few days.
Observers fair that, if Ethiopian forces are not swiftly exchanged with AU peacekeepers, popular resistance may soon cause an Iraqi-like war, which may spread over the entire African Horn region. So far, however, Ethiopian and Somali government troops are in firm control and the UN Security Council is set to discuss a peacekeeping mission for Somalia tomorrow, raising hopes for a quick Ethiopian withdrawal.
Meanwhile, more US ships are moving in to the waters off Somalia to reinforce the maritime interdiction effort there, "due to rapidly developing events in Somalia," said US Navy Lt Cmdr Charlie Brown in a statement. The ships were to "stop vessels and search them for al Qaeda terrorists attempting to escape from Somalia," US military officials said.
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