DAR AL ISLAM - SOMALIA: ANOTHER STRIKE BY U.S. TROOPS?!?

Residents report new US raid in south Somalia

MOGADISHU - Residents reported a new US air strike on suspected Al Qaeda targets in southern Somalia on Wednesday but government officials denied the accounts and the Pentagon said it had no information.

Elders in the area where the United States has confirmed hitting an alleged extremist position north of the port of Kismayo said the new attack was launched near the towns of Badade and Afmadow.

“Elders in Badade and Afmadow who made a radio contact with us confirmed there was an American air strike in the same area today,” Yusuf Ismail Aden, a resident of Kismayo told AFP in Mogadishu by phone.

“They said they could hear overflights in the morning,” he said.

However, Somali Information Minister Ali Jama said he was unaware of any air operations in the area other than those by Ethiopian troops backing the Somali government, which have been underway for weeks.

“There are operations going on in southern Somalia by Ethiopian and Somali forces,” he told AFP. “They might be either ground or air.”

Somali government spokesman Abdirahim Dinari said the resident accounts were “nonsense.”

“It is nonsense,” he told AFP. “It is fake news. We do not have any information about the alleged airstrikes. I do not know where these reports ... are coming from.”

In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman, Chris Isleib said he had no information on new strikes.

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1) Residents report new US raid in south Somalia