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US forces hunting Al Qaeda suspects hit four locations in new air strikes in Somalia - Reuters
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January 11, 2007, 07:00
The United States, facing growing international criticism over an air strike targeting Al Qaeda suspects in Somalia, denied reports yesterday it had carried out further strikes.
A Somali government source and a local lawmaker said US planes struck several sites yesterday after an assault on Monday against a village where the suspects were thought to be hiding. But an official in Washington said, "there have been no additional attacks".
US government sources said US ally Ethiopia, which defeated Islamist forces in a lightning war last month, had conducted further air strikes since Monday.
The Somali officials did not say how they distinguished between US and Ethiopian planes operating in the remote southern area where Islamists were driven after their defeat. The government source said four new US strikes hit areas near Ras Kamboni, a coastal village close to the Kenyan border long thought by Western and East African intelligence agencies to be a hide-out and training camp for Islamic militants.
Many deaths after Monday's air strike
"As we speak now, the area is being bombarded by the American air force," said the source. Somali officials said many died in Monday's strike - the first overt US military action in Somalia since a disastrous humanitarian mission ended in 1994.
Amnesty International said it had written to the US government expressing concern, echoing Ban Ki-Moon, the UN chief, France, the European Union, former colonial power Italy, Egypt and the Arab League. "We are concerned that civilians may have been killed as a result of a failure to comply with international humanitarian law," said Claudio Cordone, an Amnesty International official.
At the United Nations, the Security Council raised no questions or objections yesterday after a US diplomat told a closed-door meeting on Somalia that Washington's air strike on Monday targeted "a high-level Al Qaeda leader". - Reuters
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