U.S. Strikes Al Qaeda In Somalia

[NewXD40fun]

Death From Above



Tom

[mullanman]

Apparently the Jihadist have been moving into Somalia for just this fight as well.

this may just demobilize them as they are about to lose an Islamist state..Let's see them fight it out on two fronts.

[Wu Wei]

Exactly. One weakness of the cell set-up is poor command structure. making bombs at one's own pace is easy, responding to an attacks on multiple fronts is another matter. They may seep into the woodwork but that's a step in the right direction. They are set up to stockpile and blow their wad, not defend and adapt on-the-fly. Let's hit them here and there, everywhere until Osama's head explodes!

[Neomet]

Originally Posted by NewXD40fun

Death From Above



Tom

And now for the video...........click the link in the article. Those boys all wish they had stayed and hid in the mosque.

http://www.mindfully.org/Technology/...ky-Spectre.htm

[NewXD40fun]

Originally Posted by Neomet

And now for the video...........click the link in the article. Those boys all wish they had stayed and hid in the mosque.

http://www.mindfully.org/Technology/...ky-Spectre.htm

Very impressive groupings.




Tom

[FrankRizzoXD40]

GOT HIM!!!
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Somali Official Says Wanted Al Qaeda Militant Killed in U.S. Airstrike
Wednesday, January 10, 2007


MOGADISHU, Somalia — A senior Al Qaeda suspect wanted for bombing U.S. embassies in East Africa was killed by U.S. airstrikes, a Somali official said Wednesday as witnesses said U.S forces launched a third day of strikes.

Also Wednesday, Somalia's Deputy Prime Minister said American troops were needed on the ground to root extremists from his troubled country, and he expected the troops soon.

The death of Al Qaeda suspect Fazul Abdullah Mohammed was detailed in an American intelligence report passed on to the Somali authorities. Mohammed, one of the FBI's most wanted terrorists who has evaded capture for eight years, was allegedly harbored by a Somali Islamic movement that had challenged this country's Ethiopian-backed government for power.

"I have received a report from the American side chronicling the targets and list of damage," Abdirizak Hassan, the Somali president's chief of staff, told the AP. "One of the items they were claiming was that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed is dead."

In Washington, a U.S. intelligence official said Tuesday the U.S. killed five to 10 people believed to be associated with Al Qaeda. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the operation's sensitivity, said a small number of others present, perhaps four or five, were wounded.

Mohammed, 32, joined Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and trained there with Usama bin Laden, the terror network's leader, according to the transcript of an FBI interrogation of a known associate. He has a US$5 million price on his head for allegedly planning the 1998 attacks on the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 225 people.
He is also suspected of planning the car bombing of a beach resort in Kenya and the near simultaneous attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner in 2002. Ten Kenyans and three Israelis were killed in the blast at the hotel. The missiles missed the airliner.

Police at the Kenyan coastal border town of Kiunga on Monday arrested a wife of Mohammed, with her three children, according to an internal police report seen by the AP on Wednesday.

Also Wednesday, at least four AC-130 gunship strikes took place around Ras Kamboni, the rugged area on the Somali coast a few miles from the Kenyan border that the U.S. also attacked Monday, a local resident who declined to give his name told two-way radio operator Doorane Adan Harere in Nairobi, Kenya.

On Tuesday, helicopter gunships attacked suspected Al Qaeda fighters in the south, a day after U.S. forces staged airstrikes in the first offensive in the African country since 18 American soldiers were killed there in 1993, witnesses said.

In three days of attacks near Afmadow, a town in a forested area close to the Kenyan border, traditional elder Haji Farah Qorshel said 64 civilians had been killed and 100 injured. There was no independent confirmation of his claim.

The Ethiopian military provided the targeting information, a U.S. military official said on Wednesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity surrounding U.S. Special Operations missions.
Presidential chief of staff Hassan said at least three U.S. airstrikes have been launched since Monday and that more are likely. He also said local intelligence reports indicated Abdirahman Janaqow, one of the deputy leaders of the rival Islamic movement, had also been killed in the attack.

Somalia's Deputy Prime Minister Hussein Aideed said U.S. special forces are needed on the ground as government forces backed by Ethiopia are unable to capture the last remaining hideouts of suspected extremists.

"The only way we are going to kill or capture the surviving Al Qeada terrorists is for U.S. special forces to go in on the ground," Aideed, a former U.S. Marine said. "They have the know-how and the right equipment to capture these people."

No American troops are yet believed to be in Somalia, Aideed said, but covert operations on the ground may be under way. "As far as we are aware they are not on the ground yet, but it is only a matter of time," he said.

Somalia's president said the U.S. attacks had his support.
In Mogadishu Wednesday, a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at Ethiopian troops in the south of the capital, but missed the target and hit a house, injuring two civilians, said Khadija Muhyadin. Four people were killed in a similar attack on Tuesday, doctors told the AP.

U.S. Defense Department officials, speaking privately Tuesday in Washington because the department was not releasing the information, suggested the U.S. military was either planning or considering additional strikes in Somalia.

With a U.S. aircraft carrier off Somalia's coast, commanders can call in strikes. U.S. Defense Department officials said that, as of Tuesday. Three other U.S. warships were conducting anti-terror operations off Somalia's coast.

Somali Islamic extremists are accused of sheltering the embassy bombing suspects, and American officials also want to make sure the militants will no longer pose a threat to Somalia's U.N.-backed transitional government.
U.S. warships have been seeking to capture Al Qaeda members thought to be fleeing since Dec. 24, when Ethiopia's military invaded in support of the Somali government and drove the Islamic militia out of the capital and toward the Kenyan border.

In the capital, some said the attacks would increase anti-American sentiment in the largely Muslim country, where people are already upset by the presence of troops from neighboring Ethiopia, which has a large Christian population.

Leaders of Somalia's Islamic movement have vowed from their hideouts to launch an Iraq-style guerrilla war, and Al Qaeda deputy chief has called on militants to carry out suicide attacks on Ethiopian troops.

Meanwhile in Mogadishu, former President Abdiqasim Salad Hassan, who is close to the Islamic movement, met with the current interim president Wednesday. They both expressed support for an African peacekeeping force to replace Ethiopian troops in the country.

Somalia has not had an effective central government since clan-based warlords toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned on each other. The interim government was established in 2004.
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+1

Frank

[Wu Wei]

Quote from the article: "In the capital, some said the attacks would increase anti-American sentiment in the largely Muslim country, where people are already upset by the presence of troops from neighboring Ethiopia, which has a large Christian population."

I think this operation is demonstrating that if you don't want US troops, Predator-Mounted Hellfire missiles, and Spectre Gunships on your soil then you had better not let Al-Qaeda set up shop in your country.

[FrankRizzoXD40]

Originally Posted by Wu Wei

Quote from the article: "In the capital, some said the attacks would increase anti-American sentiment in the largely Muslim country, where people are already upset by the presence of troops from neighboring Ethiopia, which has a large Christian population."

I was going to make a point about that quote, but I had forgotten. Thanks for reminding me.

The point I was going to make was how that comment is almost EXACTLY the kind of thing we hear from the far-left these days. I even hear some of our special friends on this board say these kinds of things. "well, if we attack them it will only make it worse." "Attacking Iraq has only increased anti-Americanism." "Attacking al-qaeda will only create MORE terrorism, not less."

It has even been suggested to us by a certain, far-left, member of this forum that we should pursue a "truce" with al-qaeda and that Bush is "stupid" if he doesn't pursue the "truce". See the link below for more:

A great opportunity

It is this kind of thinking that could get us all killed. If we have enemies who have sworn to kill us and who have kill us, we need to hunt them down. This crap of "well it will only make it worse if we attack them" is complete ignorance at its best.

Frank