A report on Weekend America – a public radio news show that runs on NPR – said today that the U.S. military had missed its targets in a recent attack:
A senior U.S. official says Monday’s air strike in Somalia did not kill any of the top al-Qaeda suspects who were targeted. Somalia is working on a long history of chaos and violence at this point. First warlords, now the Ethiopian army attacks. And in the United States, Somali refugees and expatriates are worldly watching everything unfold […]
The reporter interviewed Abdi Aynte – a Somali expat and writer for the Minnesota Monitor – who runs a blog in Somali and English to update the refugee community. He expressed his opinion on the strike, in the context of the entrenched clan divisions present within Somali society:
Over all the Somalis are polarized on the clan lines, that’s true, but when it comes to Ethiopian troops invading Somalia, I think there has been a consensus among Somalis that they are pretty much opposed to Ethiopian invasion. And now, over the past three days, most Somalis that I have been able to speak with say they also disapprove the US strikes in Somalia, too. The consensus is that we can fight as much as we want, but we don’t want foreigners to occupy our country or to start bombing our country and kill innocent people.
Today the BBC reported that Somalia has come under martial law in an effort to restore order. It is shameful that U.S. intelligence failures have again contributed to further suffering and confusion in a country already in shambles.
The Daily Transit 