US strike kills 10 in Somalia

2008-05-01 17:28

Mogadishu - The United States carried out an air strike in Somalia on Thursday which killed at least 10 people, including al-Qaeda's military leader in the war-torn country, Ethiopian officials and rebels said.

The militant leader was named as Moalim Aden Hashi Ayro who trained with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and had been linked to the deaths of foreign aid workers in Somalia. He had been a target of a US air strike in 2007.

In Washington, the Pentagon confirmed an attack on an al-Qaeda military leader in Somalia but declined to identify him and would not initially say whether the mission had been successful.

"Until we have an opportunity to analyse the strike, we don't want to reveal any information," spokesperson for the Defence Department's Central Command Lieutenant Joe Holstead told AFP.

The Ethiopian government, a key US ally in Africa and the main supporter of Somalia's embattled government, said the US staged the raid on a house in Dhusamareb, in the Galgudud region of central Somalia.

"This attack was purely performed by the Americans," Ethiopia's Information Minister Berhane Hailu told AFP in Addis Ababa. "It will further weaken the cells of al-Qaeda in Somalia. It has some value for peace and stability in Somalia."

A war plane dropped three large bombs on the house at about 02:00, according to resident Jamal Mohamoud.

"We are still digging debris at the house that was totally demolished. We have so far recovered 10 bodies, including that of Ayro. Three people who were injured have been taken to hospital," Abshir Moalim Ali, an elder in Dhusamareb told AFP.

Ayro was military leader of Shabab, a group on the US government's terrorist list.

Shabab spokesperson Sheikh Mukhtar Robow said Ayro and another senior Islamist, Sheikh Muhyadin Omar, were among the dead from the air strike.

"A US warplane bombed us in Dhusamareb district and there were casualties. This was an unprovoked attack," said Robow, whose group is a radical wing of the Islamist movement which is fighting the Somalia's Ethiopian-backed transitional government.

Ayro and Omar are "the most important Shabab members who were victims of this foreign aggression. They passed away as they were fighting the liberation of their land," the spokesperson added.

- AFP