This article has been published on the Kenyan Newspaper of The Daily Nation on 11 January 2007. Thanks
Abdi-Noor

In a relentless air attack launched by the American warplanes, bombs have been dropped on locations in the South of Somalia where the remnants of the Islamic courts are supposedly hiding. This is the first overt air operation the US has carried out in Somalia since the 1993 botched mission in which 18 Americans have been killed.

The main target of the attack is to eliminate three top most terror suspects who are believed to be responsible of bombing the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. The three are: Fazul Abdullah Mohamed, a Comoros Islands native, Saleh Ali Saleh, a Kenyan and Abu Taha Al-Sudani, a Sudanese; US intelligence sources say the three have been hiding in Somalia for several years taking advantage of the chaos and civil strife that had swept across the country following the break down of law and order in early nineties.

Though heavy bombardments have taken place for two consecutive days, there is little evidence that the prime Al-Qaeda suspects have been eliminated in the horrible air strikes. And if this air operation against the remnants of the UIC and those they have been accused of giving shelter fails, there is high possibility that an Iraq-type insurgency might start in Somalia.

The air strikes which took place around Badmadow, an Island in the Somali border with Kenya some 220 miles south west of the capita Mogadishu have been reported that between 20 and 27 persons have been killed though nobody knows how many of the dead are Islamic militants.

Information leaking from the battlefield says that a good number of innocent civilians and their livestock have perished in the air attacks. It seems that the US pilots have not been so precise in their shootings because one can not mistakenly hit a herd of cattle or a donkey when his target is a group of fugitives who virtually have a place to hide in the open plains of South Somalia.

And those who have availed themselves an opportunity to run for their lives have no escape route to reach a safer place as the Kenyan government has sealed off its border with Somalia in fear of receiving Islamic courts remnants in the form of refugees who might bring their arms along with them.

Ever since the Union of Islamic Courts thawed like a piece of ice when the Joint Ethiopian and Somali forces advanced to the capital city, the American reconnaissance planes were engaged in an aerial drone in an effort to track down and locate the secret hideouts of the court leaders.

Leaving their Djibouti base, the US fighter planes consisted of helicopter gunships and an AC-130, which are known to have a huge devastating firepower as they can empty hundreds of rounds in few seconds.

In support of these attacks, the president of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) Col; Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, who only yesterday arrived Mogadishu since his appointment as a president in Nairobi two and a half years ago, said that the air strikes are aimed at eliminating Al-Qaeda elements from Somalia, while the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior said “The Americans have our full support in this mission”

On Dec. 24 Ethiopian troops started fighting with the Islamic courts union and have crashed them at all battle fronts in which the rivals have encountered. People have begun to flee the city as there was rising tension over the possibility of war in Mogadishu.

But thank god the Islamists retreated to the southern port city of Kismayo and as they were chased by the rumbling Ethiopian tanks and and jet fighters, the islamists finally disappeared in the bush.

“The Ethiopian troops are welcome” said a Mogadishu resident but we have reservations about their intentions because with them we see warlords”

However there have been demonstrations in the streets of Mogadishu in protest against an arms collection activity declared by the Prime Minister of Somalia, Prof. Ali Mohamed Ghedi. The government has re-scheduled the exercise to an unfixed date.

The Islamists who were driven out of Mogadishu and all the territories they were controlling, had returned a semblance of order after they succeeded to win the support of the general public.