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MOGADISHU - The United States this week conducted a second air strike in Somalia, US officials said today, as the top US envoy in East Africa met an ousted Islamist leader to press for reconciliation with the government.
The new air strike came roughly two weeks after an AC-130 plane killed what Washington said were eight al Qaeda-affiliated fighters hiding among Islamist remnants pushed to Somali's southern tip by Ethiopian and Somali government forces.
One official said the targets were from the Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC), a militant group defeated by government troops with Ethiopian armour and air power in a two-week war started before Christmas.
A second source said the target was an al Qaeda operative. A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment.
Washington believes Somali Islamists have protected al Qaeda members accused of bombing US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and an Israeli-owned Kenya hotel in 2002.
The United States and other countries are pushing on diplomatic and military fronts to help the government build on the gains it made in the war, which let it enter the capital for the first time since it forming at peace talks in Kenya in 2004.
Today, US Ambassador to Kenya Michael Ranneberger met SICC leader Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, who is being held by Kenyan intelligence in an upmarket hotel on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
A US embassy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the meeting but gave no details. Another source with knowledge of the meeting said it happened today.
Ranneberger, also responsible for Somalia, has said Ahmed is among those who could play a role in the inclusive reconciliation process Washington and many diplomatic players, believe is necessary to unify Somalia's multiple factions.
Ahmed, one of the most visible faces of the SICC during its six-month rule of most of southern Somalia, surrendered at the Kenya-Somalia border and is under the watch of Kenya's National Security Intelligence Service.
Diplomats say Kenya, with US support, has pushed the Somali government leaders to sit down with Ahmed for talks.
"What we will do with him will depend on what type of man he is. But we will go back to our country, sit with my cabinet and decide what to do with him," Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf told a press conference in Kigali, where he met Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
A senior Kenyan official told Reuters on Wednesday Ahmed is seeking refuge in Yemen and Kenya will not send him to Somalia because he would be killed there.
Washington has long feared Somalia, strategically located at the tip of the Horn of Africa, could become a playground for militants, since it has been in anarchy since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
Even with a still-strong Ethiopian military presence in Somalia, attacks continued in Mogadishu -- a city full of military-grade weapons and people who oppose the government.
The latest attack struck the Mogadishu international airport, witnesses said.
"Two mortars were fired. One hit us and the other one hit the airport," Ahmed Abdi told Reuters from his bed at Madina hospital, where he was treated for shrapnel in his leg and shoulder.
A hospital official there said five people, including a 10-year-old boy, were hurt. A government source earlier said one person was killed, but it could not be confirmed.
Many blame hardcore Islamist remnants for a spate of similar attacks against government and Ethiopian troops in the coastal capital. The SICC has vowed a guerrilla war, but some experts question their ability to mount a sustained campaign.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi on Wednesday said 200 soldiers were pulled out on Tuesday as part drawdown to make way for a proposed African Union force of nearly 8,000 troops, which is still being cobbled together.
The mission got a boost when Nigeria on Wednesday said it would contribute a battalion, joining Uganda and Malawi.
South Africa and Mozambique are mulling participating.
A communique from the meeting between Kagame and Yusuf said Rwanda would limit its help to training fledgling Somali forces.
- REUTERS
