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U.S. Is Not Saying Who, or What, Was Hit in Somalia Raid
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"I am angry," biology teacher Ahmed Weli Mohamed, 37, said in a telephone interview. "I am very, very angry. Even if there are terrorists, there are maybe two or three people, but hundreds are killed. . . . Americans don't respect us as human."
The news made shop owner and retired Somali soldier Hussein Farah Guley, 56, recall the early 1990s, when U.S. troops were part of a U.N. force that monitored a cease-fire in the country. Among the many foreigners killed by warring Somali clans during that period were 18 U.S. Army Rangers and Delta Force soldiers, who were attacked in Mogadishu after a Black Hawk helicopter was shot down in 1993.
"The Somalis, they will get angry," Guley said, "and if they see anyone from the outside, they will kill them."
Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi's transitional government, which U.S. officials said gave permission for the airstrike, is perceived by many Somalis as having interrupted a months-long period of unusual calm. The government is also seen as being too closely aligned with its leadership's clan and with outsiders, particularly Ethiopia and the United States. Although many rejected the stern religious laws imposed by the Islamic fundamentalists, who came to power last summer after driving out U.S.-funded warlords, they appreciated a new semblance of order.
Somalis have already begun to express anger toward Ethiopian troops. Last night, a former police building in the capital, now occupied by the Ethiopians, was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired from a speeding car. One Ethiopian and one Somali soldier were killed, and three civilians were injured.
The United States is leading an effort to deploy an African peacekeeping force to replace the Ethiopians, and it is pressing Gedi's government to open talks with Islamic leaders who are seen as moderates. No progress was reported on either front yesterday. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said a possible U.N. force is also being "actively discussed."
McCrummen reported from Nairobi. Staff researcher Julie Tate in Washington and special correspondent Mohamed Ibrahim in Mogadishu contributed to this report.
