Pentagon chief says Somalia strike possibly ongoing

[maddezmom]

Source: Reuters

SINGAPORE, June 3 (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates declined to comment on Sunday about Friday's reported U.S. naval strike on targets in Somalia, saying it was possibly an ongoing operation.

"I think that's possibly an ongoing operation and I'm not going to talk about it," Gates told a news briefing on the sidelines of an Asian security conference.

CNN reported that a U.S. Navy warship had attacked a suspected al Qaeda target in northern Somalia and residents said missiles had pounded hills where foreign jihadists fled after clashing with locals.

There was no news of casualties from the strike, which unidentified sources told CNN was the second in six months to target a suspect in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 240 people.

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SIN12497.htm

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. is Somalia on the list after Iran?

:mad:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=3296632

[TexasLawyer]

2. U.S. warship bombs Somalia village

Some more info:

U.S. warship bombs Somalia village
Suspected Islamic militant base was intended target

Sunday, June 03, 2007
By Mahad Elmi and Shashank Bengali, McClatchy Newspapers

MOGADISHU, Somalia -- An American warship bombarded a desolate mountain village in northeastern Somalia on Friday in an apparent strike on Islamist militants, Somali officials said yesterday.

The Pentagon wouldn't confirm the attack, but the governor of Bari province in Somalia's Puntland region said a U.S. Navy destroyer launched cruise missiles into the hills above the remote village of Bargal after militants fought with local security forces. The governor, Muse Geele Yusuf, said the militants, who he said included Somalis as well as fighters from other Arab countries, suffered heavy casualties.

Some news accounts quoted officials as saying that at least one of the dead militants was an American and that others came from Great Britain, Sweden, Yemen and Eritrea.

The strike was at least the third U.S. military action inside Somalia this year and the first in Puntland, a region in northern Somalia that previously had been untouched by fighting between Islamic militants that the Bush administration says are linked to al-Qaida and a transitional government backed by American ally Ethiopia.

<snip>

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07154/791215-82.stm

[maddezmom]

3. US, British jihadists killed in Somalia-official

More BOSSASSO, Somalia, June 3 (Reuters) - Six Islamist fighters, including foreigners from Western countries, were killed in U.S. air strikes and battles with local forces in northern Somalia this weekend, a regional official said on Sunday.

"Yesterday we killed six terrorists from America, Britain, Sweden, Morocco, Pakistan and Yemen," said Mohamed Ali Yusuf, finance minister in the semi-autonomous Puntland administration. "We came out victors and the fighting is over. Five Puntland troops were wounded," he told a news conference in Bossasso.

more:http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L03497345.htm

[Eugene]

4. Somali Islamists say no casualties in U.S. strikes

Source: Reuters

Somali Islamists say no casualties in U.S. strikes
03 Jun 2007 08:07:00 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Guled Mohamed

MOGADISHU, June 3 (Reuters) - A Somali jihadist group said on Sunday
it had suffered no casualties in what it called "random" American air
strikes on mountain hideouts where Islamist fighters have battled local
forces.

The group, calling itself the Young Mujahideen Movement, said it had
killed 11 soldiers from the semi-autonomous Puntland administration in
clashes following U.S. missile attacks on Friday that CNN said were
targeting an al Qaeda suspect.

"American planes carried out random attacks without causing any losses
among the mujahideen, praise to God," the group said in a Web posting.
The statement could not be immediately verified but was on a site used
by al Qaeda and other Islamists.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L03364178.htm