Abdulsamad Ali
6 March 2008
Nairobi — A US missile strike against the Somali town of Dobley may have missed its target - Kenyan terror suspect Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan.
Security sources also said in Mombasa Wednesday that Mr Nabhan's mobile communication was intercepted by the US Navy, leading to the Sunday attack.
Dobley is near the Kenya-Somalia border.
The Tomahawk missile fired from the sea may have hit when the suspect, born in 1968 in Mombasa, had already left the location, the sources added.
But the police are not ruling out that Mr Nabhan may be among the 20 people wounded in the attack.
Mr Nabhan is a close ally of another wanted terrorist suspect Harun Fazul, and are believed to be always together.
Other sources close to Mr Nabhan said they did not believe he was killed. "I think it's just propaganda to try and find out where he actually is," said one source.
The source said during an earlier attack in southern Somalia, it was announced that Mr Fazul had been killed, but it was later confirmed that he was not even near the vicinity. The Kenya police say both Mr Nabhan and Mr Fazul are wanted for their involvement in the bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on August 7, 1998 where more than 200 people died, while 5,000 others were injured.
They are also wanted for the November 2002 bombing of the Paradise Hotel in Kikambala and the attempted shooting down of Arkia Airliner in Mombasa.
Sunday was not the first time the US was striking at Somalia for their prime targets Nabhan and Fazul.
The super power conducted similar strikes in southern Somalia in January 2007 against al Qaeda targets. Officials later confirmed that they did not believe that they achieved their goal.
The 2007 targets also included members of the Islamic Courts Union, who had been driven out of power in Somalia by Ethiopian-backed Somali troops.
Days before the attack, Mr Fazul's wife and three children were arrested together with Mr Nabhan's wife after they had tried to cross into the Kenyan border.
They have all since been released although several other Kenyans, arrested while trying to flee Somalia after the ouster of Islamic Courts Union (ICU), are still being held in military camps in Ethiopia.
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gishola, you should learn to understand what is written when making incorrect statements about what you read. The report said that the U.S. "may have missed ..." Unless you are a personal friend of the terrorist(s) in question; and unless you are knowledgeable about their current whereabouts, then you have no idea what happened.
Further, it is unfortunate that your political agenda clouds your ability to understand what you read. Maybe in your next post you can be critical of terrorists who intentionally murder and maim innocent people. You are not as smart as you think you are.
The United States has no right to take innocent lives in the pursuit of justice when it can avoid such taking by other means. The attack on Somalia was a disgrace to our country, a modern example of unconcerned imperialism: Somalia didn't matter to the military, only the insurgents hiding there- too bad it was on their turf, but oh well, those lives didn't matter. Christianity has shed more blood than any other religion and although I carry no sympathies for Islamic extremists who target civilians, but I lack the same for our own military campaigns when they consider civilians collateral damage. Lastly, what do you know of the ere-writer's intelligence? People criticize the writer when the argument cannot be attacked.
It is interesting to learn that them US missile strike missed the target but it succeeded in killing about four or five innocent civilians and wounding at least 20 other innocent civilians going about their legitimate business in their country. It is also interesting to learn that a similar missile attack by the US in 2007 also missed the target but killed at least 58 civilians and ofcourse in both cases destroying civilian houses. Now it seems Somalia has been turned into a shooting range by the US with the possibility of killing any number of civilians since, as it appears, the lives of these civilians are regarded by the US, from all indications, as completely worthless. Surely, eliminating such worthless lives and destroying various houses that renders probably many families homeless does not warrant any thought of compensation by the US who has realized that, in this our present civilization, the superpower can play God and dictate and organize who should live and who should be killed especially in black Africa.