US launches air strike in Somalia

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Tuesday, 9 January 2007, 08:06 GMT

The US has carried out an air strike against members of a suspected al-Qaeda cell in a village in southern Somalia.

The targets were reported to have been tracked by aerial reconnaissance and then attacked by a US gunship launched from a US military base near Djibouti.

The US believes that the members of al-Qaeda held responsible for the 1998 bombings of US embassies in East Africa have been hiding in Somalia.

The Somali transitional government says several people were killed in the raid.

There has been no official confirmation from the Pentagon that the air strike took place, but correspondents say a statement is expected within hours.

However, Somalia's interim Deputy Prime Minister Hussein Aideed appeared to confirm the raid saying the US "have our full support for the attacks", the Associated Press news agency reported.

'Opportunistic attempt'

The attack was carried out by an Air Force AC-130, a heavily-armed gunship that has highly effective detection equipment and can work under the cover of darkness.
The raid took place a few days after an alliance of Islamic Courts in Somalia, which took control of much of central and southern parts of the country in the past six months, was routed by soldiers of Somalia's transitional government backed by Ethiopia.

The BBC's Adam Mynott in Nairobi says the attack seemed to be an opportunistic attempt by the US to destroy an al-Qaeda cell that they had been tracking for some time.

The cell is believed to be behind the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, and Dar Es Salaam, in Tanzania.

More than 250 people died in the two attacks.

The US also holds the same group responsible for attacks on an Israeli aircraft and Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya in 2002, in which 15 people died.

On Wednesday the US State Department said it had deployed navy vessels off the country's coast to ensure that al-Qaeda operatives did not flee the country.