"Many dead" in U.S. strike in Somalia - government
Source: Reuters
(Adds details) By Guled Mohamed MOGADISHU, Jan 9 (Reuters) - A U.S. air attack on a Somali village occupied by Islamists believed to be sheltering an al Qaeda suspect has left "many dead bodies", a Somali government source said on Tuesday. In the first known direct U.S. intervention in the Somali conflict, an AC-130 attack plane rained gunfire down on the southern village of Hayo late on Monday, the source told Reuters. "The Americans are saying an al Qaeda heading operations in east Africa is among the Islamists there," the source said. He did not know the suspect's name or whether he died. Hayo is in the southern tip of Somalia between Afmadow and Doble, areas where Ethiopian and Somali troops chased the Islamists' last remnants after ending their six-month rule of Mogadishu and most of southern Somalia in a two-week blitzkrieg. The AC-130 is a propeller-driven cargo plane fitted with electronic sensors that allows it to pinpoint targets with heavy automatic cannon fire. Washington has used it extensively in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda there. CBS News, which first reported the attack quoting unnamed Pentagon officials, said the AC-130 was flown by the Special Operations command from the U.S. Horn of Africa counter-terrorism base in Djibouti. A Pentagon spokesman said he had no information on the report. U.S., Ethiopian and Kenyan intelligence officials say some Islamists provided shelter to a handful of al Qaeda members, and that suspects in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania used Somalia as a base. The Islamists deny any al Qaeda links. (Additional reporting by Eric Beech in Washington)
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