Lethal airstrike in Somalia
February 25, 2012
A US military drone launched a missile strike in Somalia on Friday, killing four Islamist militants, officials told the Associated Press.
An official in Washington confirmed the attack was carried out by a US drone, while a second US official said that the target was an "international" member of the Islamist militant group al-Shabab.
Both of the officials spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity due to the classified nature of the strike.
The attack occurred in an area known as "Kilometer 60," located between the capital, Mogadishu, and the port town of Marka in the insurgent-controlled Lower Shabelle region. Residents reported hearing an aircraft overhead and then a loud explosion, saying that a vehicle was targeted.
"An al-Qaeda commander was targeted in the Lower Shabelle early on Friday morning, a missile struck and destroyed his vehicle, killing him and several colleagues," a Somali government official told the news agency AFP on condition of anonymity.
Call for intervention
The Kenyan military, which has been actively engaged in Somalia since October 2011, said it was not responsible for the strike.
"That airstrike is not from our end," Colonel Cyrus Oguna told AFP.
The attack came after Somali Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali said on Wednesday that he would welcome airstrikes by his international allies against al-Shabab militants. Al-Shabab is trying to topple the prime minister's western-backed government.
The US has admitted to flying drones out of Ethiopia to conduct a counter-terrorism campaign in the Horn of Africa, saying that the drones are unarmed and not conducting strikes.
During an international conference on Somalia in London on Thursday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rejected launching airstrikes in Somalia, calling it "a bad idea."
slk/av (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)