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Somali leader asks for U.S. boots on the ground

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Witnesses reported renewed airstrikes Wednesday aimed at Islamic militant targets in Somalia, and a Somali official claimed that a senior al-Qaida figure had been killed, although U.S. officials did not confirm it.

Also Wednesday, a senior Somali politician said U.S. troops were needed on the ground, too, to fight a Muslim extremist threat.

At least four AC-130 gunship strikes took place Wednesday around Ras Kamboni, the rugged area on the Somali coast a few miles from the Kenyan border that the U.S. also attacked Monday, a local resident who declined to give his name told two-way radio operator Doorane Adan Harere in Nairobi, Kenya.

Presidential chief of staff Abdirizak Hassan said at least three U.S. airstrikes have been launched since Monday and that more were likely. Defense Department officials, speaking privately Tuesday in Washington because the department was not releasing the information, suggested the military was either planning or considering additional strikes in Somalia.

Hassan said Al-Qaida suspect Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, who allegedly planned the 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, was killed in a U.S. airstrike early Monday, according to an American intelligence report passed on to Somali authorities. If confirmed, it would mean the end of an eight-year hunt for a top target of Washington’s war on terror. Fazul, one of the FBI’s most wanted terrorists, was allegedly harbored by a Somali Islamic movement that had challenged this country’s Ethiopian-backed government for power.

In Washington, U.S. government officials said they had no reason to believe that Fazul has been killed. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the information’s sensitivity.

Fazul, 32, joined al-Qaida in Afghanistan and trained there with Osama bin Laden, according to the transcript of an FBI interrogation of a known associate. He had a $5 million bounty on his head for allegedly planning the 1998 attacks on the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which killed 225 people.

He is also suspected of planning the car bombing of a beach resort in Kenya and the near simultaneous attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner in 2002. Ten Kenyans and three Israelis were killed in the blast at the hotel, 12 miles north of Mombasa. The missiles missed the airliner.

The U.S. campaign is the first U.S. offensive in this African country since 18 American soldiers were killed there in 1993 while on a peacekeeping mission.

Somalia’s Deputy Prime Minister Hussein Aided said Wednesday that U.S. special forces were needed on the ground as government forces backed by Ethiopia are unable to capture the last remaining hideouts of suspected extremists.

“They have the know-how and the right equipment to capture these people,” said Aided, a former U.S. Marine.

A senior Somali government official said a small U.S. team was already on the ground, providing military advice to Ethiopian and government forces.

In Washington, two senior Pentagon officials said Wednesday they had heard of no plans to put any sizable contingent of Americans on the ground in Somalia.

Small teams of liaison officers — such as special forces advisers or trainers — are another matter, they said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the subject.

A third official noted that it would be virtually unheard of for the U.S. to be involved in an operation of this size if it didn’t already have “eyes on the ground.” He declined to comment on any plans for future teams and asked not to be identified because the Defense Department is reluctant to talk about special forces.

U.S. troops based in neighboring Djibouti have been training Ethiopian soldiers for years, mostly in small unit tactics and border security. Ethiopia has the largest military in the region and is America’s closest ally in the Horn of Africa, long considered a hot spot in the war on terror.

Pentagon, regional U.S. military officials and the U.S. Embassy in Kenya all declined to comment on possible special forces operations in Somalia.