Somali, Ethiopian Troops Seek Attackers

Former police officers loyal to Somalia's transitional government patrol a street of Mogadishu, Saturday, Jan. 13, 2007. Somali lawmakers voted Saturday to authorize the government to declare martial law, the deputy parliament speaker said, as the country's internationally recognized leaders struggle to assert their authority after battling an Islamic movement that had controlled much of southern Somalia. (AP Photo/Mohamed Sheikh Nor) (Mohamed Sheikh Nor - AP)

A U.N. peacekeeping force including American troops met disaster in Somalia in 1993, when militiamen shot down two U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters and battled U.S. troops, killing 18.

On Sunday, an African Union delegation was in Somalia's capital to discuss the deployment of international peacekeepers.

The AU visit came as Somali troops and allied Ethiopian soldiers struggle to disarm Mogadishu residents reluctant to give up their guns after years of fending for themselves in the chaos.

Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi condemned European criticism of last week's U.S. airstrike in Somalia, saying such strikes were necessary to fight terrorism.

U.S. officials said they carried out only one air strike and that only eight to 10 militants with ties to al-Qaida were killed.

"The U.S. intervention in the southern part of the country is part of the international fight against terrorism. They asked us, and we authorized it. No one's sovereignty was violated," Gedi said in an interview with Rome daily La Repubblica published on Monday.

In Kenya, a security official cited a police report as saying one of the leaders of the fleeing Islamic militants was arrested Monday morning at a refugee camp near the Kenyan border with Somalia. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said he was on his way to the Dadaab refugee camp, 62 miles east of the town Garissa, to help identify the suspect.

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Associated Press writers Mohamed Olad Hassan and Salad Duhul contributed to this report.