Aircraft bombs Islamist stronghold in Somalia

(Baidoa, October 09,  2008 Ceegaag Online)
 

An unidentified aircraft bombed an Islamist rebel stronghold in central Somalia on Thursday, witnesses said, but it was not immediately clear if there were any casualties.

U.S. forces have launched several airstrikes inside Somalia in recent months against al Shabaab insurgents who have been fighting Somalia's weak Western-backed interim government and its Ethiopian military allies since the start of last year.

"A plane bombarded the outskirts of our village," said Hassan Maalim in Goobgudud, 18 miles southwest of Baidoa. "The whole earth shook but we don't know the damage or death it caused. It was flying over us since morning."

The identity of the aircraft was unclear.

In May, U.S. war planes killed al Shabaab leader Aden Hashi Ayro, who was said to be al Qaeda's top man in the country. That attack took place in Dusamareb, also in central Somalia.

Washington says al Shabaab has links to al Qaeda and says it has provided a safe haven for militants including the bombers of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

Somalia-based al Qaeda operatives were also suspected in a suicide attack on Kenya's coast in 2002 that killed 15 people at an Israeli-owned beach hotel.

Underlining growing insecurity in the capital Mogadishu, the children's charity SOS said Thursday it was closing two schools there and evacuating four teachers who were detained by Somali security forces during a nearby gunbattle Tuesday.

"The teachers, Kenyans of Somali origin, are severely traumatized," it said in a statement. "Both schools will be reopened when the situation is considered safe and our co-workers and students are no longer at risk."

In a more positive sign, a Jubba Airways plane carrying 120 Somali deportees from Saudi Arabia landed without incident at the city's international airport Thursday.

Last month, al Shabaab fighters threatened to shoot down any aircraft using the coastal airstrip, and fired mortar shells at an African Union military plane that touched down there.

The plane from Saudi Arabia was the first to land since then.

(Additional reporting by Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu; Writing by Daniel Wallis; Editing by Matthew Tostevin)

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