A former U.S. military official also confirmed the raid by the SEALs, but no other details have been provided. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the raid by name. The Pentagon declined comment.
In Somalia, officials said
international military forces carried out a pre-dawn strike Saturday
against “high-profile” foreign targets, officials said.
The strike was carried out in the hours
before morning prayers in Barawe, the same town where Navy SEALs four
years ago killed a most-wanted Al Qaeda operative, the officials said.
The strike comes exactly two weeks
after al-Shabab militants attacked Nairobi’s Westgate Mall, a four-day
terrorist assault that killed at least 67 people in neighboring Kenya.
The leader of al-Shabab, Mukhtar Abu
Zubeyr, also known as Ahmed Godane, claimed responsibility for the
Nairobi attack and said it was in retaliation for Kenya’s military
deployment inside Somalia to prevent a takeover by the militant Islamic
Somali group.
In Kenya, a military spokesman released the names of four men implicated in the mall attack.
A resident of Barawe — a seaside town
150 miles south of Mogadishu — said by telephone that heavy gunfire woke
up residents before dawn prayers. An al-Shabab fighter who gave his
name as Abu Mohamed said “foreign” soldiers attacked a house, prompting
militants to rush to the scene to capture a soldier.
Mohamed said that
effort was not successful.
The foreign troops attacked a
two-story beachside house in Barawe where foreign fighters lived,
battling their way inside, said Mohamed, who said he had visited the
scene. Al-Shabab has a formal alliance with Al Qaeda, and hundreds of
foreign fighters from the U.S., Britain and Middle Eastern countries
fight alongside Somali members of al-Shabab.
A Somali intelligence official said
the targets of the raid were “high-profile” foreigners in the house. The
intelligence official also said the strike was carried out by an
international military. A second intelligence official also confirmed
the attack. Both insisted on anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.
In Kenya, military spokesman Maj.
Emmanuel Chirchir on Saturday confirmed the names of four fighters
implicated in the Westgate Mall attack last month. Chirchir named the
attackers as Abu Baara al-Sudani, Omar Nabhan, Khattab al-Kene and
Umayr, names that were first broadcast by a local Kenyan television
station.
Matt Bryden, the former head of the
U.N. Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea, said via email that
al-Kene and Umayr are known members of al-Hijra, the Kenyan arm of
al-Shabab. He added that Nabhan may be a relative of Saleh Ali Saleh
Nabhan, the target of the 2009 Navy SEALs raid in Barawe.
In September 2009 a daylight commando
raid carried out by Navy SEALs in Barawe killed six people, including
Nabhan, one of the most-wanted Al Qaeda operatives in the region and an
alleged plotter in the 1998 bombings at U.S. embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania that killed more than 250 people.
CNN reports that U.S. Special Forces were behind a Saturday capture in Tripoli of Anas al-Libi, a Libyan Al Qaeda leader also wanted for his role in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in East Africa.
A resident of Barawe who gave his name
as Mohamed Bile said militants in Barawe closed down the town in the
hours after the assault, and that all traffic and movements have been
restricted. Militants were carrying out house-to-house searches, likely
to find evidence that a spy had given intelligence to a foreign power
used to launch the attack, he said.
“We woke up to find al-Shabab fighters
had sealed off the area and their hospital is also inaccessible,” Bile
told The Associated Press by phone. “The town is in a tense mood.”
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