US Missile Strike Kills Reputed Al-Qaida Leader In Somalia

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From 'Examiner (Newark)': U.S. missiles destroyed the house of the man identified by the U.S. military as the top al-Qaida commander in Somalia, killing him and 10 others Thursday, May 1st in a pre-dawn attack that analysts warned could torpedo peace talks. The killing of Aden Hashi Ayro comes amid escalating fighting and a spiraling humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa nation. Islamic fighters have staged a series of attacks on towns in the months leading up to the U.N.-sponsored talks, scheduled to start May 10. The insurgents typically hold the towns for a few hours, free people from jails, then withdraw with captured weapons.

Somali government officials have said Ayro, who was believed to be in his 30s, trained in Afghanistan before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States and headed al-Qaida's cell in Somalia. Few Somalis had heard of him before 2005, when Ayro desecrated a colonial Italian cemetery in Mogadishu, throwing hundreds of exhumed corpses into the sea. He then built a mosque on the site and began training fighters there - many of whom would be eager to take his place. An International Crisis Group report linked Ayro to the murders of four foreign aid workers, a British journalist and Somali peace activist Abdulqadir Yahya.

Capt. Jamie Graybeal, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, confirmed there was a U.S. airstrike early Thursday in the vicinity of the central Somali town of Dusamareeb. Another U.S. military spokesman, Bob Prucha, said the attack was against a "known al-Qaida target and militia leader in Somalia." Both declined to provide further details. Another U.S. defense official, who sought anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record, confirmed the strike targeted Ayro.

The U.S. missiles left a smoldering hole where Ayro's home had stood in Dusamareeb. "The bodies were beyond recognition, some of them cut into pieces, and those wounded have been severely burned," resident Nur Farah told The Associated Press. Local elder Ahmed Mumin Jama said the house was "totally destroyed," as were other houses nearby. Of the 11 dead, five bodies were retrieved from Ayro's house, he said, while the rest came from surrounding homes. Four people were being treated for wounds.

Sheik Muqtar Robow, a spokesman for the al-Shabab militia that Ayro led, called Ayro a martyr for the Islamist cause and vowed to carry out retaliatory attacks. "Our brother martyr Aden Hashi, has received what he was looking for - death for the sake of Allah at the hands of the United States," he told The Associated Press. He said another senior al-Shabab leader, Sheik Muhidin Mohamud Omar, also was killed in the attack.

The United States has repeatedly accused Islamist Somalis of harboring international terrorists linked to al-Qaida, which it also blames for the deadly 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The U.S. has backed Somali warlords promising to fight the insurgents, including some accused of human rights abuses.

Ayro's al-Shabab is the armed wing of the Council of Islamic Courts movement that aims to impose Islamic law. It launches daily attacks on the shaky, U.N.-backed Somali government and its Ethiopian allies. Neighboring Ethiopia sent troops into Somalia in December 2006 that drove the courts movement members from the capital and parts of southern Somalia. But al-Shabab continues to wage an Iraq-style insurgency; the State Department considers it a terrorist organization.