WASHINGTON — Under cover of the Ethiopian move into Somalia, U.S. officials launched an intensive effort to capture or kill three key suspects in the bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa more than eight years ago that killed 224 people.
A U.S. Air Force Special Operations gunship struck a location in southern Somalia where some of the suspects were believed to be hiding, a U.S. Defense Department official said Monday.
Witnesses and Somalian government officials said there were many people killed or wounded but that they had no exact numbers. U.S. military and counter-terrorism officials said they did not know whether the strike, made within the previous 24 hours, killed any of the three fugitives.
"It's not clear what the outcome is at this point," said the counter-terrorism official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the operation was classified.
Abdirahman Dinari, the Somalian government spokesman, said early reports suggested that among the dead were several leaders of the fleeing Islamic Courts Union recently driven from the capital, Mogadishu, along with "one of the leaders of Al Qaeda in East Africa." He declined to identify the leader.
The strikes targeted small villages in the vicinity of the port city of Kismayo, he said.
"The explosions shook our village," said Hussein Abdi, a resident of Afmadow. He said refugees from a nearby village told him at least six were killed.
A government official in Kismayo said soldiers captured 28 suspected Islamist fighters amid the chaos.
Dinari said leaders of the transitional government requested U.S. support and were aware of the impending strike.
U.S. officials have secretly been negotiating with Somalian clans who are believed to have sheltered the three embassy bombing suspects, hoping to obtain information about their locations. It could not be determined Monday whether the airstrike was based on information provided by the clans.
A U.S. intelligence official said it was unlikely that all three fugitives were traveling together but added that U.S. military operatives had been tracking the men for some time, waiting for an opportunity to strike.
"They were on the move, it was a thinly populated area, and this is what you got," the official said, adding that the AC-130 gunship used in the attack "is not the kind of weapon you generally deploy in downtown Mogadishu."
"This thing does some violence; it would not be the most surgical event," the official said.
