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Ethiopia PM: no confirmed Somalia al Qaeda dead-FT
05 Feb 2007 02:42:53 GMT
Source: Reuters

LONDON, Feb 5 (Reuters) - There has been no confirmation so far of any targeted al Qaeda suspects being killed in Somalia, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told the Financial Times in an interview published on Monday.

Ethiopia is working closely with the United States to identify Islamist fighters killed in neighbouring Somalia in recent clashes, including U.S. air strikes, Meles said.

"We do not have definite information on a number of the key al Qaeda targets. There are reports that one or two of them might have died but we have no confirmation," he told the FT.

Bloodied papers belonging to Aden Hashi Farah Ayro, head of an Islamist militia, had been found, but reported sightings of him suggest he may have survived, Meles was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

In addition, hardline Islamist leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys and Sheikh Hassan Turki are "alive and moving in and out of Kenya on the border," he added.

Ethiopian troops and Somali interim government forces launched an offensive in late December that routed the Somali Islamists who had controlled most of south Somalia since June.

On Jan 24, U.S. officials said the United States had carried out a second air strike in Somalia.

Two weeks earlier an AC-130 plane killed what Washington said were eight al Qaeda-affiliated fighters hiding among Islamist remnants pushed to Somalia's southern tip by Ethiopian and Somali government forces.
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General view of Ah Medella, one of the main villages in Afar depression, 120 m below sea level, an arid region near the Eritrean border, in this file photo taken in December 2005. Britain sent a six-strong team of senior Foreign Office officials to Ethiopia on Saturday to step up diplomatic efforts to free foreigners feared kidnapped in a remote area of the Horn of Africa country. Two groups of tourists, including at least seven French nationals and five Britons, were believed to have been kidnapped in a remote, inhospitable area of Ethiopia where separatist rebels operate. Picture taken in December 2005.