What Really Happened in Somalia

Instead of “al-Qaeda,” U.S. Kills Nomads in Somalia
Saturday January 13th 2007, 11:20 am

As usual, it takes a few days for the truth to emerge, not that the corporate media here in America notices.

Instead of killing Fazul Abdullah Moham-med, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan and Abu Taha al-Sudani, supposedly “al-Qaeda” operatives responsible for the 1998 US embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, the Pentagon killed “herdsmen … gathered with their animals around large fires at night to ward off mosquitoes” in Somalia, according to the Independent.

“Oxfam yesterday confirmed at least 70 nomads in the Afmadow district near the border with Kenya had been killed. The nomads were bombed at night and during the day while searching for water sources. Meanwhile, the US ambassador to Kenya has acknowledged that the onslaught on Islamist fighters failed to kill any of the three prime targets,” described as “backfir[ing] spectacularly” by the British newspaper.

All of this runs counter to the assertions of U.S. ambassador, Michael Ranneberger, who said “that no civilians had been killed or injured and that only one attack had taken place. The UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, reported that an estimated 100 people were wounded in Monday’s air strikes on the small fishing village of Ras Kamboni launched from the US military base in Djibouti after a mobile phone intercept.” It is not explained why impoverished nomads, in search of water, would be in possession of cell phones (or, for that matter, why there are cell phone towers in a remote area of one of the world’s poorest countries).

Read the rest here.