U.S. missile strike in Somalia kills 6
Officials say terrorists were the target of the attack in a remote southern village. Witnesses say some of the dead appeared to be civilians.
NAIROBI, KENYA — A U.S. missile strike today against terrorism suspects in a remote village of southern Somalia killed at least six people and wounded 10 others, witnesses and local leaders said.
U.S. officials confirmed the strike, but declined to provide details about casualties or the purpose of the attack. "It was a terrorist target," said one official, who was not authorized to speak publicly.
It is the fourth U.S. military strike in Somalia since Ethiopian troops entered the Horn of Africa nation in December 2006 to help defeat Islamist militants who had seized Mogadishu and to restore power to a U.N.-recognized transitional government.
Since then, Islamic fighters have shifted underground, launching an insurgency that has killed hundreds of Somalis and displaced an additional 600,000.
U.S. officials have accused Somalia's Islamists of harboring terrorists, including suspects from the 1998 Al Qaeda attacks against U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
The target of today's strike was believed to be Hassan Turki, one of the leaders of Somalia's Islamic militias. Turki was cited by the U.S. State Department in 2004 for alleged links to Al Qaeda and is suspected of running military training camps in southern Somalia.
"The attack was related to the visit of Turki on Sunday, but what they bombarded was a civilian place, not a military base," said Mahmoud Sheik, a resident of Dobley, the village where the missile strike took place, who was interviewed by telephone.
Local elders said Turki was in Dobley, located less than five miles from the Kenyan border, to mediate a dispute between his militias and government troops, which have been fighting for control of the area.
A U.S. missile or missiles struck two homes in Dobley shortly after midnight local time. The homes were used as a transfer point for truck shipments of khat, a leafy narcotic substance grown in Kenya and imported daily to Somalia, local leaders said.
"I awoke to heavy explosions and flashes of light," said Said Abdulle, a local elder. "It shook my doors and windows. We ran outside and hid in the trees."
He said those killed appeared to be civilians. Many residents of the town have fled, fearing another U.S. strike.
Somalia has been embroiled in clan-based warfare since the 1991 collapse of a military dictatorship. In recent weeks, violence has shifted from Mogadishu, where thousands of Ethiopian troops continue to occupy the capital, to the countryside.
