Awaiting Results of Somali Airstrikes

The Washington Post writes that the US is awaiting confirmation of who exactly what killed in the series of airstrikes conducted by the US in Somalia. The targets were believed to be key figures of al Qaeda's East Africa group. The holdup is because the US has to act very delicately in gaining access to the sites.

Direct U.S. access to the area, where fleeing Islamic fundamentalist forces are being pursued on the ground and from the air by the Ethiopians, is viewed as problematic but necessary.

A principal target of the airstrike was Abu Talha al-Sudani, a Sudanese who U.S. officials have said is a longtime associate of Osama bin Laden and a key figure in an East African al-Qaeda cell based in Somalia.

Officials cautioned against reports that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, two other al-Qaeda operatives said to be responsible for the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, may have been killed in the attack.

Also on the U.S. and Ethiopian target list, officials said, are Somali fundamentalist leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the former head of a militant group accused of links to al-Qaeda in the 1990s, and several other Somali Islamic leaders described as terrorists.

Meanwhile, the USA Today claims that the US got its targets:

The suspected al-Qaeda militant who planned the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in east Africa was killed in an American airstrike in Somalia, an official said Wednesday.
"I have received a report from the American side chronicling the targets and list of damage," Abdirizak Hassan, the Somali president's chief of staff, told The Associated Press. "One of the items they were claiming was that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed is dead."

Mohammed was apparently killed in an airstrike Monday afternoon on Badmadow island off southern Somalia. Ed Morrissey has more.

More airstrikes have been launched against other targets. Somalia's Prime Minister thinks US troops are necessary to flush out the al Qaeda remnants from his country. The Agonist has more.

Gaius notes that yesterday's reports from AP included completely unsubstantiated accounts that two newlyweds were killed in one of the US airstrikes, and yet published the report anyway. Gaius believes that does have an effect on the way the conflict is being fought - an information war is being fought and the media is taking sides by its inability to verify information provided by its stringers.

They admitted there was no confirmation whatsoever for that, but they printed it anyway. But that has been a winning catch phrase for the islamists in the past and has gotten them lots of media coverage. So they repeat it - and the press dutifully prints it. If you count up all the times the islamists have claimed the US hit a wedding party or newlyweds, you have to conclude that the US has perfected the bride and groom seeking missile. Our media is helping us lose the information war.

UPDATE:
Allah has more, including a link to Debka that recaps Mohammed's terrorist exploits. If the US airstrikes did get him, good riddance. He caused misery, death, and destruction wherever he went. FFDB also comments and provides maps and Mohammed's FBI Most Wanted poster.

UPDATE:
The Europeans aren't all that happy with the US airstrikes. They think that it might destabilize the region further. In case the Europeans weren't quite on top of the news, Somalia is far from stable. Indeed, Somalia is a mess because you had folks like the Islamists taking advantage of the situation and undermining the transitional government. Al Qaeda was also taking advantage of the failed state in Somalia to use it as a base of operations. That the US would go after al Qaeda in the course of the fighting between the Ethiopians and the ICU shouldn't be surprising since the ICU was working in conjunction with al Qaeda.

The Europeans are also questioning the timing of the airstrikes. Diplomats are always oh so diplomatic about their issues. Al Qaeda would only benefit from any kind of diplomatic action before the Ethiopians completed their sweep through Somalia in support of the Somali transitional government. Any delay would give al Qaeda time to find another safe haven, and the US airstrikes were designed to eliminate that possibility.

UPDATE:
It didn't take long for the Islamists to be called insurgents. A group of gunmen attacked a transitional government barracks.

Mogadishu exploded in violence on Wednesday morning after unknown insurgents attacked a transitional government barracks during the night and soldiers responded by sealing off large swaths of the city, searching house to house for guns.

The weapons raids immediately provoked stiff resistance, and squads of Ethiopian soldiers and troops loyal to the transitional government poured into the streets, where they battled outraged residents and a handful of masked insurgents.

From dawn to afternoon, the pop of gunfire and the boom of explosives reverberated across Mogadishu, Somalia’s reliably chaotic capital.

But it is difficult to tell how many people here actually support the growing insurgency against Somalia’s transitional government and the Ethiopian troops backing it. On Wednesday, a group of masked men stood on the steps of a Mogadishu mosque and proclaimed themselves to be Somalia’s new freedom fighters. They were met by jeers.

“Why can’t you hit anything, then?” shouted one woman, referring to a botched grenade attack that missed the Ethiopians and demolished a house. “Were you scared? Were your fingers trembling?”

Regardless of the insurgents’ popularity, or lack thereof, violence is increasing. And the transitional government, which entered the capital two weeks ago for the first time since it formed in 2004, now faces a critical test: how quickly, if at all, can it pacify a notoriously dangerous city, bristling with military-grade weaponry and split by deep clan divisions?

So, the Times in one breath says that the insurgency is growing, but in the next, says that they can't tell how many people actually support the insurgency.

Yet, the Times hits on the salient point - the transitional government must pacify the insurgents now before the problems get out of hand. The jihadis and insurgents must be eliminated. The article also mentions that much of the violence and strife in Somalia can be traced to centuries old clan conflicts - which should be a signal to anyone paying attention that the difficulties will not end quickly.