The US has carried out unilateral attacks using an AC-130 gunship on what it considers are al-Qaeda suspects in a village in southern Somalia on Monday night.
CNN, NBC and CBS first reported the military action. Citing Pentagon officials, CBS said the targets included the senior al-Qaeda leader in East Africa and an al-Qaeda operative wanted for his involvement in the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. AP
The Somalia’s interim Deputy Prime Minister Hussain Aideed, said concerning the raid that the US "have our full support for the attacks", the Associated Press news agency reported.
We can see the US has attacked another poor country in its global so called war on terror. Any government set up as an alternative or opposing Western intentions is soon labeled as terrorists and then subsequently attacked.
The UIC (Union of Islamic Courts) had bought law and order to many parts of Somalia after 15 years of lawlessness. The UIC also drove out War Lords that were over running Mogadishu, the war lords were supported by the interim government. The majority of people were happy with the rule of the UIC; the people of Somalia had suffered as a result of corrupt leaders supported by the interim government.
The American and Ethiopian backed interim government sought the aid of Ethiopian troops to fight out the UIC earlier this month. Ethiopian troops entered Somalia and used air strikes, tanks and Somalia’s government troops to drive out the UIC fighters from UIC controlled areas.
Though the UIC had been accused of links to Al-Qaeda, but its leader Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed was viewed as a moderate and was from an anti-fundamentalist Sufi group which belongs to the Ahl Sunnah wal jama'ah school of thought in Islam. This is opposed to the Saudi Wahabi school of thought that Al-Qaeda is linked to. The UIC had no proven links to Al-Qaeda, only that they opposed the American backed interim government. This seems to have been enough of a reason for the US to link the UIC to Al-Qaeda.
Actions such as the attack on Somalia can only increase bad feeling towards the US and heighten the risk of terrorism not diminish it. As the war on terror has now moved to the horn of Africa there seems to be no end to the unilateral actions that the US is prepared to take in its quest for world domination.
Links to this story
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6243459.stm
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/068C7A74-4D2A-4E6F-8546-B6E062C1AFC2.htm
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SOMALIA?SITE=PASTR&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
http://www.sweeble.com/story/view/1309
by Michael Olson
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