Actualité - US Air Force Attacks Somalia

Nairobi, Jan 9 (Prensa Latina) - US warplanes attacked Elnadow, Kudha and Hayow towns in the Somali zone of Ras Kamboni, on the border with Kenya, in an operation politically supported by the president of the transitional government, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed.

Washington has resorted to force against Somalia over a decade after failing in a military operation against rebels in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, which took the lives of 18 US soldiers.

Addressing the press, the Somali transitional president said that Americans "have the right to carry out air raids against Al Qaeda members wherever they are."

Prior to Abdullahi Yusuf s statements, first vice Minister Hussein Aideed gave details on the operation and politically supported it saying that the US has full Somali government support to carry out those offensives.

According to Aideed, the air strikes were aimed at targeting alleged members of Al Qaeda network involved in dynamite attacks against the Washington embassies in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

It was not initially reported if the operation reached its goal, but the US media revealed that several bodies were seen at the operation scene.

(Prensa Latina News Agency)