US raid may have hit top Somali militant-Pentagon
Source: Reuters
By Sue Pleming WASHINGTON, Jan 17 (Reuters) - The U.S. air strike in Somalia last week may have wounded or killed a senior militia leader who the United States says protected three al Qaeda suspects wanted by Washington, a senior Pentagon official said on Wednesday. Theresa Whelan, deputy assistant secretary of defense for African affairs, said she believed the raid killed eight "fighters" for Aden Hashi Farah Ayro, head of an Islamist militia who may have been seriously wounded or even killed. "Ayro had been instrumental in sheltering the three al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists that we are interesting in bringing to justice for the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania," said Whelan in answer to a question at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. "He (Ayro) was important to us as without his help, the top three, could not have stayed in Somalia." The three are suspected of bombing the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and of a 2002 hotel blast on the Kenyan coast. The attack last Monday in a village in southern Somalia was the first overt U.S. military action in Somalia for more than a decade. It targeted Comorian Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Sudanese Abu Talha al-Sudani and Kenyan Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, who were believed to be hiding among the fleeing Islamists. Whelan said the United States was still searching for the three al Qaeda suspects and trying to confirm whether Afghanistan-trained Ayro was killed. "We think we might have gotten him," she said, adding: "We winged (wounded) him, we know that, we know that he was seriously wounded but we do not know if he has since expired." Whelan told Reuters the eight killed were all young men "armed to the teeth, clearly a security detachment." She rejected Somali reports that dozens of civilians were killed. "There were no civilians," she said. Ethiopia, whose forces helped oust the Islamists in Mogadishu at the end of December, asked for U.S. help in tracking down the group who had fled from the Somali capital and whose vehicle was stuck in the mud, said Whelan. "We began to realize that the rats were leaving Mogadishu, people started to say, hey there is an opportunity that we have not had," she added. "They were actually out under the bushes and in the field. They were trying to move but they were stuck in the mud and so they had decided to spend the night in the bushes," said Whelan. She said the United States was working closely with Kenya and Ethiopia to secure the borders out of Somalia and to ensure any "terrorists" seeking refuge there were brought to justice. She said reports that the U.S. military's Combined Joint Task Force in Djibouti had conducted the strike were wrong. The air strike was conducted by another U.S. military unit, she said, without providing details. (Reporting by Sue Pleming; editing by Philip Barbara; email:sue.pleming@Reuters.com; tel: 202 898 8393)
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