MOGADISHU (Reuters) - The United States has conducted a second air strike in Somalia, U.S. officials said on Wednesday, as the top U.S. envoy in East Africa met an ousted Islamist leader to press for reconciliation with the government.
The new air strike came roughly two weeks after an AC-130 plane killed what Washington said were eight al Qaeda-affiliated fighters hiding among Islamist remnants pushed to Somali's southern tip by Ethiopian and Somali government forces.
One official said the targets this week were from the Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC), a militant group defeated by government troops with Ethiopian armor and air power in a two-week war started before Christmas.
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A second source said the target was an al Qaeda operative. A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment.
"We're going to go after al Qaeda and the global war on terror, wherever it takes us," said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.
"The very nature of some of our operations are not conducive to public discussions and there will be times when there are activities and operations that I can talk to you about and there will be other times when I just won't have anything for you," he added.
Washington believes Somali Islamists have protected al Qaeda members accused of bombing U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and an Israeli-owned Kenya hotel in 2002. Continued...
NAIROBI -- Kenyan Muslims Saturday accused the United States of lying about plans by Somali Islamists to carry out suicide bombings in Kenya and Ethiopia as a pretext to attack Somalia.
The Supreme Council of Kenyan Muslims (SUPKEM) said Washington was using the alleged attacks as a ploy to attack and destroy the lawless Horn of Africa state, where a powerful Islamic movement is rapidly gaining influence.
"America wants to cause confusion as a pretext to give it reason to once again attack and destroy the Republic of Somalia," SUPKEM chairman Abdel Ghaful El Busaidy told reporters at a press conference here.
"Kenyan Muslims strongly condemn ... the US ... [for] putting Somalia and the Union of Islamic courts as another in its axis of evil," he said.
"We Kenyans should be careful not to fall into the American propaganda," said Busaidy, who urged the Kenyan government to continue mediating the conflict between the Islamists and Somalia's largely ineffective government.
On Thursday, US embassies in Nairobi and Addis Ababa said they had information about "reports of terrorist threats emanating from extremist elements within Somalia, which target Kenya, Ethiopia, and other surrounding countries."
US officials said the Islamists' supreme leader, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, purportedly authorized the attacks, but the Islamists have denied what they dismissed as "baseless" allegations.
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