United States Defence Secretary Robert Gates declined to comment on Sunday about Friday’s reported US naval strike on targets in Somalia, saying it was possibly an ongoing operation.
”I think that’s possibly an ongoing operation and I’m not going to talk about it,” Gates told a news briefing on the sidelines of an Asian security conference.
CNN reported that a US navy warship had attacked a suspected al-Qaeda target in northern Somalia and residents said missiles had pounded hills where foreign jihadists fled after clashing with locals.
There was no news of casualties from the strike, which unidentified sources told CNN was the second in six months to target a suspect in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 240 people.
The United States launched air strikes in southern Somalia in January aimed at three top al-Qaeda suspects but killed their allies instead, US officials have said.
Locals in Barga, a port in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region, told Reuters on Saturday that the missiles appeared to be aimed at a group of Islamists, including foreigners, who landed by boat in the area on Wednesday and had a gun battle with local police. ‒ Reuters