Somali militants vow to avenge deadly U.S. airstrike
ICC Note
The air strike killed the leader of Islamic radical group Al-Shaba. Al-Shaba is responsible for killing lots of civilians including four Somali Christians who were killed in the past six months.
05/02/2008 Somalia (CNN) — Islamist fighters in Somalia threatened Friday to avenge the death of a reputed al Qaeda commander killed in a U.S. airstrike and warned Americans to stay out of the Horn of Africa nation.
U.S. missiles destroyed the house of Adan Hashi Ayro in the central Somali town of Dusamareeb on Thursday in the first major success in a string of such U.S. military attacks over the past year.
“This will not deter us from prosecuting our holy war against Allah’s enemy,” Sheik Muqtar Robow, a spokesman for the al-Shabab militia that Ayro led, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
“We know our enemy. It is impossible to hit missiles on our people and we let your citizens come to our country,” he said.
Robow said another senior al-Shabab leader, Sheik Muhidin Mohamud Omar, also was killed in the attack.
Al-Shabab is the armed wing of the Council of Islamic Courts movement, which seized control of much of southern Somalia , including the capital, Mogadishu , in 2006.
Ethiopian troops allied with Somalia ‘s shaky, U.N.-backed interim government invaded to drive the movement from power in December 2006.
An International Crisis Group report linked Ayro to the murders of four foreign aid workers, a British journalist and Somali peace activist Abdulqadir Yahya. Somali government officials have said Ayro, who was believed to be in his 30s, trained in Afghanistan before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States and headed al Qaeda’s cell in Somalia .
