UN News Service

Somalia: Secretary-General Ban Concerned Over Humanitarian Impact of US Air Strikes

9 January 2007 – United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed concern over the United States air strikes on Somalia, particularly their humanitarian impact, his spokesperson said today, adding that the world body is seeking more information on the attacks while also assessing the possibility of renewing emergency assistance to the strife-torn country and the thousands who need help at the border with Kenya.

“We are trying to gather more information about the military action in southern Somalia including through the office in Nairobi of the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Somalia, (Francois Lonsény Fall),” Michele Montas told reporters at UN Headquarters in New York.

“Notwithstanding the motives for this reported military action, the Secretary-General is concerned about the new dimension this kind of action could introduce to the conflict and the possible escalation of hostilities that may result. He is also concerned about the impact this would have on the civilian population in southern Somalia, and regrets the reported loss of civilian lives.”

According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), at least 4,700 internally displaced persons on the border with Kenya have no access to humanitarian aid and are in critical need of food, shelter, medicine and basic supplies, Ms. Montas said.

“The UN is planning to send an assessment team to the Kenya-Somalia border on Thursday. The team will look into the possibility of re-starting humanitarian deliveries into Somalia and examine recent population movements in and around the border,” she said.

Humanitarian operations in Somalia were suspended and international staff evacuated when fighting between the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) – backed by Ethiopian troops – and the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) intensified late last month.

On Monday, Mr. Fall attended an African Union (AU) Peace and Security Commission meeting in Addis Ababa to discuss the situation in Somalia, and tomorrow the Security Council is due to hold consultations on the troubled Horn of Africa country, which has not had a functioning government since the regime of Muhammad Siad Barre was toppled in 1991.

The East African Standard

American air strikes kill at least 27 civilians in Somalia

By Standard team and Reuters

The United States bombed a village near the Kenya-Somalia border and reportedly killed 27 civilians.

A Somalia official who spoke to Sky News from Mogadishu claimed helicopter gunships flattened entire villages in the area suspected to harbour an al Qaeda suspect and fleeing Islamic militia.

The attacks are likely to escalate tension and a fresh surge by Somali refugees, who have been barred from entering Kenya following the closure of the border.

On Tuesday, there was no independent confirmation of the killings though a Reuters report said scores were feared dead.

Initial reports indicated that an AC-130 plane rained gunfire on the desolate southern village of Hayo near the Kenyan border late on Monday.

Internal Security minister Mr John Michuki said Kenya had deployed all its security wings to the common border with war-torn country to maintain security.

Michuki said the Kenya Army, Kenya Navy, Kenya Air Force and Administration and regular police were all currently involved in border patrols.

Michuki, who was speaking to the Press at the Kenya Institute of Administration, added: “In some areas, we have deployed Kenya Wildlife Service rangers to ensure there is tight security”.

Kenya closed its border with Somalia — which stretches more than 2,000km from North Eastern Province to the Indian Ocean in Lamu District — last week in an attempt to lock out fleeing fighters of the routed Islamic Courts Union.

Somali politicians interviewed in Nairobi claimed the US strikes came after Ethiopia sought Washington’s assistance in routing militia which fled Mogadishu last week and believed to be hiding in remote villages near the Kenyan border.

[....]

Strike targeted known terrorists

The Washington Post, quoting unnamed military sources, said al-Sudani was one target of the raid.

Ethiopian and Somali troops have chased al-Sudani since leading Islamist fighters near Buur Hakaba, close to the government Baidoa base, in the early days of a war that began around Christmas, Somali government officials told Reuters.

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 offensive.

Though many have suspected an American hand in the Somali conflict, this attack is the first solid evidence of it and is in line with previous US attacks targeting al Qaeda members.

An unmanned Predator drone flown from the US Horn of Africa counter-terrorism base in Djibouti killed an al Qaeda suspect in Yemen in 2002, and the AC-130 was almost certainly flown from there by the elite Special Operations Command.

The AC-130 is a propeller-driven converted cargo plane derived from the AC-47 gunships flown in Vietnam that were known as “Puff the Magic Dragon”. It has sophisticated sensors that allow it to pinpoint targets with heavy automatic cannon fire.

The lumbering, 29 metre long plane can fire 1,800 rounds a minute from a Gatling gun and has in its arsenal a 105mm howitzer — ordinarily a crew-fired ground artillery cannon that has to be towed by a truck.

[...]

US sponsored warlords but failed

But it did receive a setback when CIA was found in April to have paid despised Mogadishu warlords to help fight the Islamists on counter-terrorism grounds, only for them to lose the city to disciplined Islamist fighters in June.

The presence of troops from traditionally Christian Ethiopia has stirred both nationalist and religious fervour in mainly Muslim Somalia, with a series of protests and small attacks on Ethiopian troops in recent days.

Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf, who on Monday entered Mogadishu for the first time since his appointment in 2004, insisted the Ethiopians were not occupiers and would leave soon.

Ethiopia wants to withdraw his troops within a few weeks, but that may depend on the speed with which an African peacekeeping force can be mustered to replace them.

Shabelle Media Network

Somali president endorses the American air bombing in his country

Aweys Osman Yusuf
Mogadishu 09, Jan.07 ( Sh.M.Network) -Somalia’s President Abdulahi Yusuf Ahmed, who has held a press conference at the presidential palace (Villa Somalia) in the capital Mogadishu, said he firmly supports the American air bombardment on suspected al-Qaeda hideouts (settlements) in southern Somalia last night.

US officials in Washington have confirmed that American AC 130, which has flown from US military base in neighboring Djibouti, struck so-called al-Qaeda suspected members in settlements of southern Somalia.

Mr. Yusuf said he only heard the news from local radios. “America has the right to hunt down and air bombard wherever those who were responsible for bombing its embassies in East Africa are staying or hiding”, he stressed.

He said the Somali government did not forgive the Islamist leaders.

Speaking to reporters he said, “You have taken our words wrong. The government only extended an amnesty to Islamist fighters. We have not offered any forgiveness to the ICU leaders. We are tracking tem down; they have brought foreign extremists and al-Qaeda in the country”.

via AllAfrica.com