Re: American hostages killed
It seems we have been going to Somalia:
WASHINGTON, Sept 14 (Reuters) – Helicopter-borne U.S. special forces attacked a car in southern Somalia on Monday and killed one of the region’s most wanted militants, U.S. sources familiar with the operation said.
Kenya-born Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, 28, was wanted over a hotel bombing and a botched missile attack on an Israeli airliner leaving Kenya’s Mombasa airport in 2002.
The U.S. sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States believed that Nabhan was killed in the attack and that his body had been taken into U.S. custody.
At least one U.S. helicopter was involved in the operation, the sources said.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman declined to comment “on any alleged operation in Somalia.”
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/09/14/us-troops-attack-somalia/ Following confirmation by the French military that they definitely weren’t in the process of invading Somalia, the United States military is now confirming that it is, in fact, American forces that are pouring into the southern portion of the country in a helicopter-backed invasion.
US military officials confirmed to the Associated Press today that forces from the US Joint Special Operations Command had invaded the lawless African nation, and were the ones responsible for the attack on the tiny village of Barawe this morning that was the first staging ground of the attack.
What the officials wouldn’t comment on was exactly why the United States, which launched a failed “peacekeeping” operation in the nation in 1993 and backed an Ethiopian invasion in 2007, had decided to launch yet another foreign adventure, though media outlets speculated that it was probably something to do with al-Qaeda.
The United States has recently been supplying the self-described Somali “government” with “tons of arms,” according to the State Department. Yet reports on the ground suggest that forces loyal to this faction, which only controls a handful of city blocks in the capital city of Mogadishu, have generally just sold the US-supplied weapons on the open market.
Though without any concrete information about what the American military actually intends to do in Somalia it will be difficult to speculate about the size and scope of the invasion, with roughly 200,000 soldiers committed to Iraq and Afghanistan (and more escalations on the way in the later) it seems hard to imagine the nation is looking to commit to yet another long-term occupation.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/14/us-troops-raid-somalia The French have been there too:
Paris – The French military on Monday denied claims that its forces were involved in a raid on a village in an Islamist-controlled area of southern Somalia.
“There was no French operation,” said admiral Christophe Prazuck, spokesman for the armed forces’ general staff.
The spokesman said the French forces present in the region were operating within the framework of the European Union anti-piracy force Atalante and that “they did not intervene over Somali territory.”
Somali elders and witnesses said foreign troops staged a helicopter raid in the village of Erile, around 200km south of the capital Mogadishu, opening fire on a vehicle and killing several people inside.
The area is controlled by the Shebab, an Al Qaeda-inspired organisation engaged in a massive offensive against the Somali government and which is believed to be holding a French agent kidnapped in July.
A local Islamist commander who asked to remain anonymous claimed that the helicopters were French.
http://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/france-denies-role-in-somalia-raid-1.458495 Jamie
