Somalia: Islamic Terrorists Step Up and Get Hit

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June 8, 2007: An American destroyer used a cruise missile (not gun fire) to hit a house occupied by al Qaeda members in northern Somalia (Puntland) last week. At least a dozen al Qaeda members were in the house, six of them foreigners. Two Somalis survived the explosion. Puntland troops and U.S. Special Forces arrived on the scene quickly to examine the scene. The six dead foreigners were from the U.S., Britain, Sweden, Morocco, Pakistan and Yemen.

June 7, 2007: The U.S. revealed that one of the foreign terrorists seized in Somalia recently was a courier and liaison between al Qaeda operations in Somalia and Pakistan.

June 6, 2007: The government shut down three radio stations for broadcasting material supporting the Islamic courts and Islamic radicalism.

June 5, 2007: The prime minister of Ethiopia arrived unexpectedly, for a visit to the capital. Ethiopia wants to get its troops out of Somalia, but will not do so until the rest of the 8,000 man peacekeeping force arrives. So far, only about 20 percent of the peacekeepers have shown up. Today, Ethiopian troops began going house to house searching for weapons and suicide bomb making equipment. The Islamic Courts have been hiding, putting all their energy into terror attacks. Ethiopian troops have also shut down the arms markets in Mogadishu and other towns. Large caches of weapons and ammo have been seized. This won't eliminate the arms trade in Somalia, but it certainly puts a dent in it. Somalia has been under a UN arms embargo for over a decade, but that has not stopped gunrunners from moving stuff in by sea and air.

June 4, 2007: Ethiopian troops fired on a car speeding towards their base. As they suspected, it was a suicide bomber, and the car exploded before getting close enough to damage the base. Elsewhere in the capital, shooting incidents left at least six dead. Meanwhile, pirates killed a sailor from the crew of a ship they seized three weeks ago. This was apparently done to speed up negotiations with the ships owner.

June 3, 2007: A suicide bomber tried to kill the prime minister, but missed and killed himself and four bystanders.

June 2, 2007: A Danish ship was seized off the coast. An American warship showed up after the pirates got aboard. U.S. gunfire destroyed the three pirate speed boats, but the pirates then forced the Danish crew to move their ship into Somali territorial waters, where the American ship could not follow.