[A-List] It's A Secret... US Warships Shell NE Somalia

["Leigh Meyers" <the.buffalo.in.the.midst@xxxxxxxxx>]

AFP via Gulf Times

The US Defence Department refused to confirm the bombardment, but
vowed to keep pursuing extremists. "We recognise the importance of
working closely with allies to seek out, identify, locate, capture,
and if necessary, kill terrorists and those who would provide them
safe haven," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said in a statement.
"The very nature of some of our operations, as well as the success of
those operations is often predicated on our ability to work quietly
with our partners and allies," he said.


US shells Qaeda in Somalia
Published: Sunday, 3 June, 2007, 01:44 AM Doha Time
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=152894&version=1&template_id=39&parent_id=21

MOGADISHU: A US warship shelled suspected Al Qaeda targets in
northeastern Somalia after Islamist fighters clashed with troops from
the country's semi-autonomous region of Puntland, witnesses and
officials said yesterday.

They said a US Navy destroyer fired on several targets overnight where
Islamist militants are believed to have bases in mountainous and
remote areas outside the coastal town of Bargal. "The US military was
targeting the Al Qaeda hideout.

This was aimed at flushing out all the terrorists," said Mussa Jelle
Yusuf, the governor for Barri region. "Puntland troops are surrounding
the Bargal hills and hunting for those Al Qaeda elements. They ...
will be captured or killed."

A Puntland military official said the operation came three days after
the reported entry of Islamist fighters and foreigners of Arab origin
into Bargal, about 1,250km northeast of the Somali capital Mogadishu.
"Our forces have fought with Islamic fighters, including foreigners
linked to Al Qaeda," said the official, who requested anonymity.

"After the fighting a US Navy ship shelled three targets on the
outskirts of Bargal in the mountainous area," he said. "We cannot get
information on casualties, but the shelling continued for hours....
The Puntland troops are still chasing Islamic fighters in the
mountainous area," he added.

On Wednesday, Puntland said its troops had killed at least two foreign
fighters who had sailed into Bargal in two boats accompanied by
heavily-armed Somali gunmen. "These are Al Qaeda fugitives who fled
from the southern part of Somalia. We do not know the motive of their
arrival here, but it is definitely terrorism-related," Yusuf said.

The US Defence Department refused to confirm the bombardment, but
vowed to keep pursuing extremists. "We recognise the importance of
working closely with allies to seek out, identify, locate, capture,
and if necessary, kill terrorists and those who would provide them
safe haven," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said in a statement.
"The very nature of some of our operations, as well as the success of
those operations is often predicated on our ability to work quietly
with our partners and allies," he said.

CNN reported that the destroyer was targeting a suspected Al Qaeda
operative believed to have been involved in the 1998 attacks on US
embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people, mostly
Africans.

A US force called the Combined Joint Task Force/Horn of Africa is
based in Djibouti and patrols the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden
with the aim of reducing the threat of terrorism. Earlier this year, a
US aerial gunship bombed positions in southern Somalia after
Ethiopia-backed Somali government forces ousted a powerful Islamist
movement from the country's southern and central regions.

Local elders said more than 100 civilians were killed. The targets
were suspected Al Qaeda operatives blamed both for the 1998 US embassy
bombings and the 2002 suicide attack on an Israeli-owned hotel in the
Kenyan port of Mombasa that killed 15 people.

Among the so-called "high value" Al Qaeda militants believed to be in
Somalia are Fazul Abdullah Mohammed from the Comoros, Kenyan Saleh Ali
Saleh Nabhan and Sudanese national Abu Taha al-Sudani. â AFP