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The United States acknowledged it had carried out its first known military action in Somalia since 1994, but called it a targeted air strike on Al-Qaeda's main leaders in the region.
A Pentagon spokesman confirmed that an AC-130 gunship was used to attack “principle Al-Qaeda leadership in the region” in southern Somalia early Monday and left open the possibility of more attacks in the future.
Among the senior Al-Qaeda figures were one or two believed to be responsible for the 1998 bombings of US embassies in east Africa, but it was unclear whether they were among those hit in the attack, a US official said.
“We are going to pursue those people that are responsible, those individuals, those terrorists that are responsible for the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania,” said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman.
At the White House, spokesman Tony Snow said the attack was “a reiteration of the fact that people who think that they're going to try to establish a safe haven for Al-Qaeda any place need to realize that we're going to fight them.”
Whitman would not comment on reports from Somalia of a second attack reportedly involving at least two helicopter gunships a day later, although he indicated US forces were not involved.
“We acknowledge the fact that the United States military did conduct a strike in Somalia on Sunday,” Whitman said. Pentagon officials later clarified that it was conducted early Monday Somali time.
“The target of the strike we believe was the principal Al-Qaeda leadership in the region.”
It was the first known US military strike in the country since the withdrawal of US forces there in 1994, and follows a rout of Islamist forces by Ethiopian and Somali government forces.
But US officials said the attack was in response to an opportunity that had presented itself, rather than part of a broader US military engagement in Somalia.
“It was a target of opportunity we had to take,” said a US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The State Department meanwhile confirmed that Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer cancelled plans to visit Mogadishu just hours before the strike, meeting with members of the Western-backed interim Somali government in neighbouring Kenya instead.
“Given the security situation on the ground, frankly it (the visit) wasn't possible,” department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.
Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters Monday's operation appeared to be a discrete anti-terrorist operation rather than a sign of a deeper US military involvement in the Somalia conflict.
Levin said the targets were Al-Qaeda militants thought to have carried out the 1998 embassy bombings which killed 224 people.
“I think the targets were tracked probably with some high technology equipment and satellites,” he said, but asked for details added, “I may be wrong. I think I just speculated.”
Among the Al-Qaeda figures believed to be operating in Somalia are Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, who the US believes were responsible for the embassy bombings.
Another is Abu Talha al-Sudani, a Sudanese alleged to be an explosives expert close to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
The US official said the military believed that they had in their sights at least a couple of the four or five senior Al-Qaeda leaders in Somalia.
But he added, “We still don't know who they are.”
Whitman declined to say whether any Al-Qaeda leaders were killed, or to more precisely identify the targets of the attack.
Somali village elders said at least 19 civilians had been killed in the gunship attack on two villages in Somalia's southernmost tip — Badel and Aayo.
Whitman said the operation was prompted by “credible intelligence that led us to believe we had principal Al-Qaeda leadership in an area where we could identify them and take action against them.”
He would not comment directly on the reports from Somalia of a second attack involving helicopter gunships, which Somali officials said targeted a terrorist command and control facility on Tuesday.
The Pentagon provided no other details on the operation itself, but Whitman stressed the US military conducts “all our operations in close cooperation with allies in the region.”
