Islamists Arrest People Watching World Cup Match

It can't be long before the left links this to some on the right not caring for the World Cup.

Reports from the city of Afgoye about 30 kilometers south of Somali capital Mogadishu that thirty one (31) world football cup fans were arrested last night have been confirmed by residents and Islamist militants from the city.

The arrests were made when heavily armed militants from the Hezbal radical group raided a house where the fans were watching the match between Germany and Australia.

“Thirty one (31) viewers including older men but mostly youths were jailed by the Islamist administration in Afgoye. My friends and I were watching in a house nearby but we switched off the TV when we heard sounds of gunshots. When we went outside we saw our villagers and neighbours being escorted by masked militants on their way to prison,” one of the city's residents said in a telephone conversation early in Monday.

Sheik Yuusuf Abuu Hamza. an official from the city's Islamist administration confirmed the arrest of world cup fans, accusing them of being guilty against Islam. “They have made a big mistake; they didn’t obey the orders not to watch the un-Islamic event of football so they will face punishment,” the militant official said.

Radical World Cup hater Tim Blair suggests as punishment the captives will be forced to watch the match over again.

A Riot In Sweden

So what's the big deal? Riots go on all the time. What makes this one so special? What makes it special is the pretzel the news agency reporting on this went to to not identify the rioters. They are called immigrants, youths, everything under the sun but what what they really are. Just more outraged Muslims acting like petulant children as only Muslims can.

Rioters in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, have burned down a school building and thrown stones at police in a second night of disturbances.

The trouble began on Monday after a group of youths in a suburb with a mainly immigrant population were refused entry to a school dance.

Police say up to 100 youths went on the rampage, throwing stones and setting several cars alight.

So how can I make the assertion that they were Muslim? Easy at the very end of the story is this little bit of background information.

Rinkeby is home to a large number of first- and second-generation immigrants. Many of them are from Somalia, so the area is sometimes nicknamed Little Mogadishu.

No doubt receiving inspiration from their brothers in Paris. Uh speaking of which doesn't Maine and Minnesota have large Somali populations? I seem to recall some stories of young guys from Minnesota going to Somalia to wage jihad not too long ago. I am sure it was just my imagination.

'Today God Helped Me Realise My Dream'

You can just tell he's had lust in his heart since the late 90's. Make that his late 90s.

Compared to Methuselah, he probably seemed a good catch.

Hundreds of people have attended the wedding of Ahmed Muhamed Dore, who says he is 112, and his bride, aged 17.

At the ceremony in central Somalia, Mr Dore - who already has 18 children by five wives - said he would like to have more with his new wife, Safia Abdulleh.

'Today God helped me realise my dream,' he said, after the wedding in the region of Galguduud.

The bride's family said she was 'happy with her new husband'.

Mr Dore said he and his bride - who is young enough to be his great-great-grand-daughter - were from the same village in Somalia and that he had waited for her to grow up to propose.

The marriage in the town of Guriceel is being described by Somalian historians as the first of its kind in the Horn of Africa nation for over a century.

'I didn't force her, but used my experience to convince her of my love; and then we agreed to marry,' Mr Dore was quoted by the BBC as saying.

Such a heartwarming love story.

Muslim Inter-League Play

So what is a good Muslim to do when there are no Crusaders or Jews nearby to slaughter? Why, wail on each other, that's what.

Reports today out of Somalia, that vacation capital of the African continent, that rival factions of Muslims have now turned their guns on each other.

Heavy fighting has erupted in central Somalia between a pro-government Sufi Muslim group and Islamist hardliners.

Guess that piracy thing ain't working out so good now that some countries have flexed a little muscle. It does get hard to keep the teams in the Islamic Outrage League straight, with all the creative names they come up with. And you thought the NBA had a long season.

Everywhere they go the Islamists bring nothing but death and destruction and leave chaos in their wake. You can make all the apologies you want, you can try to make nice all you want, but at the bottom of it all is the inherent violence that is incorporated into the religion of pieces.

U.S. Mulls Attacks On Pirate Bases

Why this hasn't already been considered is beyond me. Although attacking these pirates should well be a multinational effort considering these maniacs are hijacking ships from any country that happens by.

The US military is considering a plan to launch massive attacks on Somali pirate bases and create aid services for the people there to help stop the hijacking of ships off Africa's east coast, according to a new report.

The plan, reported today by Bloomberg News, would include helping Somalia create their own coast guard and train security forces to foil pirate attacks, Defense Department officials said.

The ambitious Defense Department proposal will be submitted to the Obama administration as they decide how best to tackle the increase in pirate attacks off the Somali coast.

What I don't agree with is going in there and training security forces. This lawless hellhole just invites a fiasco.

Blackhawk Down ring a bell, anyone?

The only way to make shipping routes safe from pirates would be to disrupt their support network on land, security analysts said.

"There really isn't a silver-bullet solution other than going into Somalia and rooting out [pirate] bases," James Carafano, senior research fellow at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation told Bloomberg News.

Any military action against the pirates, defense officials said, would require the support of the Somali people, who have been hostile of foreign intervention in the past.

No kidding.

I think a certain Democrat realizes that today.

Islamist insurgents fired mortars towards U.S. congressman Donald Payne as he left Somalia after a rare visit by a U.S. official to the anarchic country, police said.

Somalia's capital Mogadishu is one of the most dangerous cities in the world. U.S. officials have avoided travel to the battle-scarred city due to constant fighting between factions there.

"One mortar landed at the airport when Payne's plane was due to fly and five others after he left and no one was hurt," Abukar Hassan, a police officer at Mogadishu airport, told Reuters.

The first order of business for these companies moving freight should be to amp up their own security. If we have air marshals on planes, why do these operations not have their own security?

American Al Qaeda Hold 'Press Conference'

No word whether they used a TelePrompter to help stay on message.

Two young Americans who left their homes to join an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group in Somalia held a rare “press conference” in southern Somalia on Sunday, saying they want to be killed "for the sake of God," according to a U.S. law enforcement official and a report posted on a Somali news Web site.

For several months the FBI has been investigating at least 20 Somali-American men from the Minneapolis area and elsewhere in the United States who traveled to war-torn Somalia to join the terrorist group al-Shabaab, which has been warring with the moderate Somali government since 2006.

Last month, a source familiar with the FBI investigation told FOX News that "several" of the men had returned to the United States, while others “are still there [in Somalia]." Today is the first time any of these men have spoken publicly.

"We came from the U.S. with a good life and a good education, but we came to fight alongside our brothers of al-Shabaab … to be killed for the sake of God,” one man said at the press conference, as translated by Omar Jamal, the executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul, Minn.

According to the news report, two men, identifying themselves as Abu-Muslim and Abu Yaxye, said they are “Somali youth” from the United States who are now stationed near the city of Kismayo, more than 300 miles southwest of Mogadishu, according to Jamal. The men said they are talking to media for the first time so others can learn why they joined al-Shabaab, he said.

Sources told FOX News there is a video of the press conference.

A spokesman from the FBI Field Office in Minneapolis, E.K. Wilson, said he is “aware of the video,” which he said was first brought to his office’s attention early Sunday.

Wilson would not say whether the FBI has identified the men in the video.

At their press conference, the men did not say exactly how many other U.S. citizens have joined al-Shabaab, but they insisted that “many” Somali-Americans are now “all over Somalia to join the Jihad,” according to Jamal's translation.

“Some of us are still in training, others are on the frontline of the Jihad,” Abu-Muslim said, according to Jamal. “Sadly a few of us are dead, one of whom carried out a suicide bombing.”

Somali Pirate All Washed Up

As a follow-up to this story from over the weekend comes news that one of the Somali pirates swept overboard with his new-found wealth has surfaced on shore.

The body of a Somali pirate who drowned just after receiving a huge ransom washed onshore with $153,000 in cash, a resident said Sunday, as the spokesman for another group of pirates promised to soon free a Ukrainian arms ship.

Five pirates drowned Friday when their small boat capsized after they received a reported $3 million ransom for releasing a Saudi oil tanker. Local resident Omar Abdi Hassan said one of the bodies had been found on a beach near the coastal town of Haradhere and relatives were searching for the other four.

"One of them was discovered and they are still looking for the other ones. He had $153,000 in a plastic bag in his pocket," he said Sunday.

Kommander Kerry to Hold Hearings on Somali Piracy

Reporting for doody

Good grief, here we go with the revisionist history of John Kerry's 14-week stint in Vietnam all over again. This AP writer slobbers over this guy as if he were the most decorated veteran to return from Southeast Asia. Still, with the focus of the story being Somali piracy, it's even more disturbing to see Kerry ready to hold hearings rather than take decisive action. It's a good thing this tower of jelly isn't Secretary of State, although it's bad enough he'll be chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

As a young Navy swift boat commander in Vietnam, Sen. John Kerry was no stranger to the perils of hot pursuit in combat.

He was awarded a Silver Star for beaching his boat after a rocket attack and racing ashore to chase down and kill a Viet Cong fighter armed with a rocket launcher.

Nearly 40 years later, as incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry favors using hot pursuit against pirates in the waters off Somalia, but urges a cautious approach before U.S officials consider sending American forces to chase them ashore. Kerry plans committee hearings next year looking at the problems posed by piracy.

The Massachusetts Democrat, who was on President-elect Barack Obama's short list to be secretary of state, said a hot pursuit policy on Somalia's coastline is "long overdue." But he warns against any "haphazard, sloppy" military missions.

"You gotta know what you're getting into and where you're going and under what circumstances," Kerry, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, said in a recent telephone interview with The Associated Press. "I mean, if you send five police officers raging into the center of Mogadishu, you are asking for trouble. You gotta be smart."

Responding to the growing problem of piracy in Somali waters, the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously earlier this month to authorize nations to conduct land and air attacks on pirate bases.

The resolution could set the stage for increased American military action in Somalia, a chaotic country where a U.S. peacekeeping mission in 1992-93 ended with a humiliating withdrawal of troops after a deadly clash in Mogadishu. The movie "Black Hawk Down" portrayed the ill-fated operation.

The senator said he was mindful of the dangers of hot pursuit cases, particularly given his Vietnam experience and his work as a longtime member of the Foreign Relations panel.

"If you've just got one patrol boat and it chases guys in and people go ashore without enough firepower, without knowing what they're up against, you can get into a lot of trouble," Kerry said.

He knows hot pursuit cases can be ripe for controversy. As the Democratic nominee during the 2004 presidential race, Kerry was accused by some former swift boat veterans of lying about the Silver Star he won as a result of the onshore confrontation in South Vietnam's Mekong Delta.

Where was Kerry's criticism of the Somalia incursion back in 1993? I don't recall any criticism from him back then over the botched efforts of Bill Clinton and the late Les Aspin. But now Kerry would rather hold hearings and pay lip service to the problem rather than suggest decisive action. This vacillating exercise will do nothing to stem the problem but rather will embolden the pirates. Perhaps Kerry would like to sit down with them and sweet talk them with some of his legendary nuanced dialogue.

Danish Warship Sinks Pirate Ship

Strangely enough, they actually rescued these thugs before sinking their ship.

A DANISH anti-piracy warship has rescued seven suspected pirates whose boat had broken down in the Gulf of Aden and then sank their heavily-armed vessel.

Danish soldiers seized several anti-tank rockets and AK-47 assault rifles from the pirate ship, whose engine had failed 90 nautical miles from Yemen, a television reporter aboard the Absalon navy ship said.

The pirates, who said they had been adrift at sea for eight days, were fed by the Danish navy and placed on inflatable boats with Danish navy divers alongside the Absalon.

According to Reuters, they're "suspected" pirates. We can't rush to any hasty conclusion here.

The Naval Operational Command said the Absalon was bound by international law to help the men and that Danish sailors had uncovered a number of weapons onboard the vessel similar to those often used in pirate attacks on merchant ships.

Honestly, would anyone give a shit if their boat was sank with the "suspected" pirates on board?

Somali Pirates Livin' Large, Bringin' the Bling, Yo!

I can't believe the Associated Press is even portraying these gangsters as some sort of heroes to the downtrodden, but here we have it, brazen thugs transformed into idols, because hey, the children are happy now! Can a reality show be far off?

Somalia's increasingly brazen pirates are building sprawling stone houses, cruising in luxury cars, marrying beautiful women — even hiring caterers to prepare Western-style food for their hostages.

And in an impoverished country where every public institution has crumbled, they have become heroes in the steamy coastal dens they operate from because they are the only real business in town.

"The pirates depend on us, and we benefit from them," said Sahra Sheik Dahir, a shop owner in Haradhere, the nearest village to where a hijacked Saudi Arabian supertanker carrying $100 million in crude was anchored Wednesday.

These boomtowns are all the more shocking in light of Somalia's violence and poverty: Radical Islamists control most of the country's south, meting out lashings and stonings for accused criminals. There has been no effective central government in nearly 20 years, plunging this arid African country into chaos.

Life expectancy is just 46 years; a quarter of children die before they reach 5.

But in northern coastal towns like Haradhere, Eyl and Bossaso, the pirate economy is thriving thanks to the money pouring in from pirate ransoms that have reached $30 million this year alone.

"There are more shops and business is booming because of the piracy," said Sugule Dahir, who runs a clothing shop in Eyl. "Internet cafes and telephone shops have opened, and people are just happier than before."

Geez, contrast this with the never-ending gloom and doom stories about the economy here, and you'd think these are glory days on the Horn.

In Haradhere, residents came out in droves to celebrate as the looming oil ship came into focus this week off the country's lawless coast.

Businessmen gathered cigarettes, food and cold bottles of orange soda, setting up kiosks for the pirates who come to shore to resupply almost daily.

Dahir said she even started a layaway plan for them.

"They always take things without paying and we put them into the book of debts," she told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "Later, when they get the ransom money, they pay us a lot."

Residents make sure the pirates are well-stocked in khat, a popular narcotic leaf, and aren't afraid to gouge a bit when it comes to the pirates' deep pockets.

I wonder how much eight-balls and Philly blunts are going for?

"I can buy a packet of cigarettes for about $1 but I will charge the pirate $1.30," said Abdulqadir Omar, an Eyl resident.

A buck thirty? Man, that tax alone on a pack smokes in Manhattan is easily double that.

"Regardless of how the money is coming in, legally or illegally, I can say it has started a life in our town," said Shamso Moalim, a 36-year-old mother of five in Haradhere.

"Our children are not worrying about food now, and they go to Islamic schools in the morning and play soccer in the afternoon. They are happy."

The attackers generally treat their hostages well in anticipation of a big payday, hiring caterers on shore to cook spaghetti, grilled fish and roasted meat that will appeal to Western palates.

And when the payday comes, the money sometimes literally falls from the sky.

Pirates say the ransom arrives in burlap sacks, sometimes dropped from buzzing helicopters, or in waterproof suitcases loaded onto skiffs in the roiling, shark-infested sea.

Sure sounds like this piracy has been paying well.

Until today, that is.

Indians Sink the Pirate Mother Ship

Just when a report yesterday was indicating how everyone was powerless to stop a rag-tag bunch of Somali pirtaes from hijacking ships, the Indians step up and blammo(!), down goes the mothership.

An Indian navy warship has sunk a Somali pirate "mother ship" in the Gulf of Aden, the world's most treacherous waterway, after the renegades threatened to attack the frigate.

The clash happened as pirates claimed to begin negotiations over a ransom for the Saudi super-tanker that was seized nearby on Saturday with two Britons aboard. The Sirius Star, which is carrying at least $100 million worth of oil, is the biggest ship ever to be hijacked.

INS Tabar, an Indian frigate dispatched last month to the area to protect the country's merchant fleet, sighted the pirate vessel late on Tuesday. Indian officers said they spotted pirates moving on the deck with rocket propelled grenade launchers and automatic weapons.

"On repeated calls, the vessel's threatening response was that she would blow up the naval warship," the Indian Navy said in a statement.

"INS Tabar retaliated in self defence and opened fire on the mother vessel.

"As a result of the firing by INS Tabar, fire broke out on the vessel and explosions were heard, possibly due to exploding ammunition that was stored on the vessel."

“From what we see in photographs the pirate vessel is completely destroyed,” a senior officer said. Two speedboats were seen fleeing the sinking ship.

Adding insult to injury, the Indian ship then drove by and blurted "hello my friends, take that shit!" before sailing off.

More Mindless BBC Bias

Here's yet another example of the endless bias and mindlessness at the BBC. Get a load of this headline:

Somali insurgents attack police

Insurgents? Against what? The first two paragraphs say this:

At least seven people have been killed, including three police officers, in the Somali capital, following the formation of a new anti-government alliance.

Armed insurgents staged a hit-and-run attack on a government base in north-east Mogadishu, leaving six dead, a police spokesman said.

Still does not tell you who these jokers are though. Then a little later you get this:

The new alliance has reportedly named former Islamist leader Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed as its chairman.

Prime Minister Mohamed Ghedi has criticised the new Eritrea-based grouping as "trouble-makers and terrorists".

and then this:

The new Alliance for the Liberation of Somalia (ALS) groups together former Islamists and opposition figures.

It aims to remove the Ethiopian-backed government by negotiation - or war.

So now it becomes clear. What you have is more Islamic terrorists (I'm not buying the "former" part) killing people and the BBC shilling for them by calling them "insurgents".

Nearly 3000 dead Americans at the former World Trade Center were unavailable for comment.

American al-Qaeda Pleads Guilty

Recall the usual babble from a couple months back when this piece of garbage was arrested. Well, he pled guilty, is facing 10 years, and with any luck will never be heard from again.

Former Houston resident Daniel Joseph Maldonado pleaded guilty Thursday to participating in an al-Qaida training camp in East Africa, federal prosecutors said.

Maldonado, 28, was the first American charged in connection with an attempt to establish an extremist Islamic state in Somalia. He also used the name Daniel Aljughaifi, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Maldonado, who was charged with receiving training from a foreign terrorist organization, agreed to plead guilty to the government's criminal complaint in exchange for an agreement that prosecutors would not file any other charges, Assistant U.S. Attorney Abe Martinez said.

Details of the agreement were not available because it is sealed. By accepting the deal, Maldonado avoids possible indictment by a grand jury considering the case.

Federal officials would not say whether Maldonado has provided information that will lead to other terrorism arrests. He is scheduled to be sentenced on June 29, when he could be sent to prison for as long as 10 years and fined $250,000.

"For an American to travel overseas to train as a violent jihadist alongside al-Qaida elements who are focused upon threatening the security of our nation, is decidedly disturbing and definitely illegal," U.S. Attorney Don DeGabrielle said in a prepared statement. "Maldonado's conviction should serve as a strong warning to any American who considers joining forces with terrorist groups here or abroad."

Maldonado, a Muslim convert and blogger under the names Daniel Aljughaifi and Abu Mohammed, came to Houston from Boston for a short time in 2005 to work for the Houston-based IslamicNetwork.com, a Web site frequented by terrorism suspects.

A few months later, he and his wife, Tamekia, moved to Egypt with their two children. His wife, who bore the couple's third child in Egypt, died overseas of malaria after the family moved to Somalia.

Also at Flying Imams.

Previously: American Trained With Al Qaeda in Somalia

American Trained With Al Qaeda in Somalia

Another homegrown jihadi.

An American citizen charged with receiving terrorist training at an Al Qaeda camp in Somalia — including classes in how to become a homicide bomber and "wage violent jihad" — was taken into custody by FBI agents and returned to the U.S. Monday night night, Justice Department officials told FOX News.

An indictment unsealed Tuesday by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Houston charges Daniel Joseph Maldanado, 28, a.k.a Daniel Aljughaifi, whose last known address was in Houston, with receiving training from a foreign terrorist organization and conspiring to use an explosive device outside the United States.

Maldonado was captured by the Kenyan military on January 21 as he fled to avoid capture by Ethiopian and Somali government forces battling Al Qaeda-backed rebels, Justice Department officials said.

The Boston Globe reports he's a Boston native.

Federal officials charged Daniel Joseph Maldonado, 28, a Muslim convert also known as Daniel Aljughaifi and Abu Mohammed, with undergoing military training with a terrorist organization and conspiring to use a destructive device.

Maldonado, a native of Boston who also lived in Houston, was returned to the United States on Monday night and appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Calvin Botley Tuesday afternoon, the U.S. Attorney's office in Houston said. He was ordered held without bond until a detention hearing next week. Nancy Herrera, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office, said she was unsure whether Maldonado had an attorney yet.

Although he spent only three months in Houston before heading to Somalia, the LA Times calls him an Ex-Texan.

UPDATE: LGF notes he had a blog. More here.

Somali Islamic Leader Wants Peacekeepers Out

Sounds like a reasonable request, considering wherever peacekeepers tend to go, mayhem follows. In this case though, I wouldn't trust this clown for one minute.

NAIROBI, Kenya: One of Somalia's top Islamic leaders warned on Saturday that the deployment of a foreign peacekeeping force will only fuel growing insecurity in the country.

Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed told The Associated Press he wanted talks with the interim government to help foster peace in the anarchic African nation.

Sheik Ahmed, who was seen as a moderate within the Islamic movement ousted by Somalia's government with the help of Ethiopian military forces earlier this year, spoke by telephone from an undisclosed location in Kenya, where he sought sanctuary.
...

Sheik Ahmed said the Islamic movement leaders, some of whom are accused by the U.S. of having links to al-Qaida, are alive and in constant touch with each other.

"We are ready to talk with the government," he said. "We are seeking peace, reconciliation and Somalis to solve their own problems through dialogue."

Again with the dialogue. Have him call The Pantsuit. She plans to end war. Maybe she'll have a chat with him.

Somalia Strike Missed al-Qaeda Targets

There's always tomorrow.

The controversial US air strike in southern Somalia missed all three top al-Qaeda members Washington alleges are hiding out in the country, a senior US official said on Thursday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said eight to 10 “al-Qaeda affiliated terrorists” were killed in Monday’s attack, but gave no details.

On Tuesday the Pentagon confirmed that an AC130 aircraft was used to target “the principal al-Qaeda leadership in the region”. The attack marked the first overt US military intervention in the Horn of Africa nation since its doomed invasion in the 1990s.

I don't recall our arrival in Somalia as an invasion. More like a humanitarian mission gone awry. Anyway, we have these scum on the run, so hunt them down and finish them off.

Al-Qaida Chief in Somalia Killed

This time, we didn't have to bomb any aspirin factories. Just keep the good news coming.

A senior al-Qaida suspect wanted for bombing American embassies in East Africa was killed in a U.S. airstrike, a Somali official said Wednesday, a report that if true would mean the end of an eight-year hunt for a top target of Washington's war on terror.

There was no immediate confirmation from the U.S. In Washington, a U.S. intelligence official said the U.S. killed five to 10 people in an attack on an al-Qaida target in southern Somalia but did not say who was killed. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the operation's sensitivity, said a small number of others present, perhaps four or five, were wounded.

Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, who allegedly planned the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa, was killed in a U.S. airstrike early Monday morning local time, according to an American intelligence report passed on to the Somali authorities.

"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"

No reports of any weddings being disrupted either.

Ralph Peters has more and Opinion Journal notes the U.S. is staying on the offensive this time in Somalia.

Rowan Scarborough also has a detailed report in the Washington Times.

Pounding al Qaeda in Somalia

The good news continues out of Somalia. Lots of payback due these monsters, so please, keep it up.

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Attack helicopters strafed suspected al-Qaida fighters in southern Somalia on Tuesday, witnesses said, following two days of airstrikes by U.S. forces — the first U.S. offensives in the African country since 18 American soldiers were killed here in 1993.

In Washington, a U.S. intelligence official said American forces killed five to 10 people in an attack on one target in southern Somalia believed to be associated with al-Qaida. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the operation's sensitivity, said a small number of others present, perhaps four or five, were wounded.

A Somali lawmaker said 31 civilians, including a newlywed couple, died in Tuesday's assault by two helicopters near Afmadow, a town in a forested area close to the Kenyan border. The report could not be independently verified.

Is it just me or does it always seem there's a wedding going on whenever we whack these guys, be it in Iraq, Afghanistan, or now Somalia? You don't suppose that's just propaganda, perhaps?

Meanwhile, another account says there's "many dead" and has some whiny European reaction.

In another sign of a more muscular U.S. action, the
U.S. Navy said it had moved the aircraft carrier Eisenhower to the Somali coast to beef up a naval cordon to cut off any Islamist escape via the Indian Ocean. Kenya has sealed its border.

As news of the air attacks emerged, rocket-propelled grenades were fired at a building in Mogadishu housing Ethiopian and Somali government troops, where at least one person died in a weekend attack.

A Reuters reporter heard the RPGs followed by a 10 minute exchange of fire with automatic weapons. A car was burning outside the compound. A government source said one Somali soldier was killed and one wounded in the firefight.

The European Union, which has frequently differed with Washington over Somalia, criticized the U.S. air raid.

"Any incident of this kind is not helpful in the long term," a spokesman for the European Commission said.