U.S. Strikes Al Qaeda In Somalia

Two U.S. airstrikes in Somalia killed large numbers of Islamic extremists, government officials and witnesses said Tuesday. The targets were suspects in the bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998.

A U.S. Air Force AC-130 gunship conducted the strikes against suspected members of al Qaeda, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports.

The targets included the senior al Qaeda leader in East Africa and an al Qaeda operative wanted for his involvement in the 1998 bombings of two American embassies in Africa, Martin reports. Those terror attacks killed more than 200 people.

The attacks came after the terror suspects were spotted hiding on a remote island on the southern tip of Somalia, close to the Kenyan border, Somali officials said. The island and a site 155 miles north were hit.

It was the first overt military action by the U.S. in Somalia since the 1990s and the legacy of a botched intervention — known as "Black Hawk Down" — that left 18 U.S. servicemen dead.

The U.S. military said Tuesday it had sent an aircraft carrier to join three other U.S. warships conducting anti-terror operations off the Somali coast.

The AC-130 is capable of firing thousands of rounds per second, and sources say a lot of bodies were seen on the ground after the strike, but there is as yet, no confirmation of the identities.

The gunship flew from its base in Dijibouti down to the southern tip of Somalia, Martin reports, where the al Qaeda operatives had fled after being chased out of the capital of Mogadishu by Ethiopian troops backed by the United States.

Once they started moving, the al Qaeda operatives became easier to track, and the U.S. military started preparing for an air strike, using unmanned aerial drones to keep them under surveillance and moving the aircraft carrier Eisenhower out of the Persian Gulf toward Somalia. But when the order was given, the mission was assigned to the AC-130 gunship operated by the U.S. Special Operations command.

If the attack got the operatives it was aimed at, reports Martin, it would deal a major blow to al Qaeda in East Africa.

Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf told journalists in the capital, Mogadishu, that the U.S. "has a right to bombard terrorist suspects who attacked its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania."

Monday, Yusuf had entered the restive capital for the first time since his election.

Deputy Prime Minister Hussein Aideed told The Associated Press the U.S. had "our full support for the attacks."

But others in the capital said the attacks would only increase anti-American sentiment in the largely Muslim country.
"U.S. involvement in the fighting in our country is completely wrong," said Sahro Ahmed, a 37-year-old mother of five.

Already, many people in predominantly Muslim Somalia had resented the presence of troops from neighboring Ethiopia, which has a large Christian population and has fought two brutal wars with Somalia, most recently in 1977.

The U.S. and Ethiopia both accuse the Islamic group of harboring extremists, among them al Qaeda suspects.

Ethiopian troops, tanks and warplanes took just 10 days to drive the Islamic group from the capital, Mogadishu, and other key towns.

President Yusuf said the leaders of the Islamic movement "would not be forgiven" and that talks between the two rival sides were not an option.

One U.S. attack took place on Monday afternoon on Badmadow island. The area is known as Ras Kamboni and is suspected to be a terror training base.

Ethiopian and Somali troops had over the last days cornered the main Islamic force in Ras Kamboni, with U.S. warships patrolling off shore and the Kenyan military guarding the border to watch for fleeing militants.

Witnesses said at least four civilians were killed in another attack 30 miles east of Afmadow town, including a small boy. The claims could not be independently verified.

"My 4-year-old boy was killed in the strike," Mohamed Mahmud Burale told the AP by telephone. "We also heard 14 massive explosions."

"We don't know how many people were killed in the attack but we understand there were a lot of casualties," government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said. "Most were Islamic fighters."

The alleged mastermind of the embassy bombings in East Africa, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, escaped to Ras Kamboni, according to testimony from one of the convicted bombers.

Mohammed is believed to be the leader of the al Qaeda East Africa cell.

Leaders of the Islamic movement have vowed from their hideouts to launch an Iraq-style guerrilla war in Somalia, and al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden's deputy has called on militants to carry out suicide attacks on the Ethiopian troops.

Somalia has not had an effective central government since clan-based warlords toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned on each other, sinking the Horn of Africa nation of 7 million people into chaos.

At least 13 attempts at government have failed since then. The current government was established in 2004 with U.N. backing.