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U.S. War Number Six: Somalia

U.S. War Number Six: Somalia

2011-07-01
Source: The Guardian



The US has conducted its first drone strike on Islamist militants in Somalia, marking the expansion of the pilotless war campaign to a sixth country.

The missile strike on a vehicle in the southern town of Kismayo, reported last week as a helicopter assault, wounded two senior militants with al-Shabab and several foreign fighters according to the Washington Post.

Armed Predator and Reaper drones already operate in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen and Libya, where they are controlled by the US military or the CIA.

The CIA-run programmes are controversial. Although they provide the Obama administration with a low-risk weapon against Islamist militants, they stir intense anti-American hostility among the local population.

Opposition is most vociferous in Pakistan, where the government said on Wednesday it was shutting down a big CIA drone base, and had ordered US personnel based there to leave.

The closure of Shamsi airbase is unlikely to end the strikes. The CIA has moved its drones to bases across the border in Afghanistan, and some strikes have already taken place from there, according to a senior Pakistani military official.

Racked by decades of civil war, Somalia has become an al-Qaida hub, after Yemen and Pakistan's tribal belt. The US military previously targeted militants based there using helicopter gunships, special forces teams and cruise missiles fired from aircraft carriers.





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