U.S. Launched Air-strikes On Terrorist In Somalia

The U.S. launched at least two air-strikes on different locations against terror targets in Somalia, hunting down suspected terrorists from Canada, Britain, Pakistan and elsewhere have been among those taken prisoner or injured in military operations in Somalia.

Ethiopian forces invaded Somalia last month to prevent an Islamic movement from ousting the weak, internationally recognised government from its lone stronghold in the west of the country.

The US and Ethiopia both accuse the Islamic group of harbouring extremists, among them al-Qaida suspects.

Along with air-strikes a US AC-130 gunship attacked suspected al-Qaida terrorists near Ras Kamboni in southern Somalia.

Somalia’s president said the US was right to launch air-strikes against al-Qaida suspects in his country.

“The US has a right to bombard terrorist suspects who attacked its embassies Kenya and Tanzania,” President Abdullahi Yusuf told the world press in the capital, Mogadishu.

It is the first overt military action by the US in Somalia since the 1990s and the legacy of a botched intervention, known as Black Hawk Down, that left 18 US servicemen dead.

Meanwhile, the US military today said it had sent an aircraft carrier to join three other US warships conducting anti-terror operations off the coast.

US warships have been seeking to capture al-Qaida members thought to be fleeing Somalia in the wake of Ethiopia’s December 24 invasion.

The US attacks took place yesterday afternoon in Badmadow island.

The area is known as Ras Kamboni and is believed to be a suspected terror training base.

The United States' decision to bomb Islamists holed up in a corner of Somalia near the border with Kenya is a high-risk tactic which could ignite an Iraqi-style insurgency across a swathe of East Africa, analysts and regional experts say.