Friday, February 23, 2007
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US military reportedly used bases in Ethiopia to attack leaders of the Al-Qaeda network in Somalia last month, according to unnamed US officials.
US and Ethiopian officials also shared intelligence on the location of the Al-Qaeda members, with US officials even supplying satellite pictures, The New York Times reported.
In January, US forces deployed heavily armed AC-130 gunship airplanes to carry out at least two air strikes in southern Somalia against suspected Al-Qaeda members.
The officials told the paper their effort had been a qualified success.
While it had disrupted terrorist networks in Somalia, it had failed to kill three Al-Qaeda operatives blamed for the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, they said.
Somalia has been the scene of a long cycle of violence since the toppling of dictator Mohamad Siad Barre in 1991.
In December, Ethiopian troops entered Somalia to help the weak transitional government drive out hard-line Islamists forces.
The Islamists had been running the capital Mogadishu for the previous six months and controlling large parts of the country, with the government confined to a provincial backwater.
Source: AFP, Feb 23, 2007