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Eight killed in air strike on Somalia Islamists: residents

by Dave Keating | May 1, 2008 at 04:13 am | 136 views | add comment

The situation in Somalia is steadily spiraling out of control, with analysts saying this is the worst they've seen the country in a decade.

An air strike in central Somalia on Thursday, which insurgents blamed on the United States, killed at least eight people, including two top Islamists, a Somali rebel spokesman and residents said.

The Somali government said one of dead Islamists was an Al-Qaeda nominated leader in the war-shattered country.

There was no immediate comment from the US military on whether it was behind the attack on a house that residents said was used by Islamists in the Dhusamareb district of central Somalia's Galgudud regionin.

"Three heavy bombs dropped by a plane at about 2:00am (2300 GMT) hit a residential house. I have this morning seen eight bodies in the destroyed house," said resident Jamal Mohamoud.

Somali insurgent spokesman Sheikh Mukhtar Robow said two senior members of Somalia's Islamist insurgency were among "several people" killed in the attack about 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of the capital Mogadishu.

"A US warplane bombed us in Dhusamareb district and there were casualties. This was an unprovoked attack," said Robow, a spokesman for Shabab, a radical wing of the Islamist movement which is fighting the Ethiopian-backed transitional government.