The U.S. launched a military airstrike in Somalia to go after a group of terrorist suspects, defense officials said Monday.
“It was a deliberate, precise strike against a known terrorist and his associates,” one U.S. military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the record.
He gave few other details, except to say the targets were believed staying in building known to be used regularly by terrorist suspects.
In the strike early Monday, Somali police said three missiles hit a Somali town held by Islamic extremists, destroying a home and seriously injuring eight people.
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The United States conducted similar strikes in southern Somalia in January 2007 against al Qaeda targets, hoping to kill some of the militants suspected in the 1998 attacks against the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
U.S. officials later confirmed they did not believe they achieved that goal.
(BBC News) Jan. 9, 2007 – Witnesses told the BBC Somali service that areas near the town of Afmadow were being bombed. They report hearing heavy firing in a number of areas and have seen military helicopters flying overhead. Later, the nearby village of Hayo was bombed.
“My four-year-old boy was killed in the strike,” Mohamed Mahmud Burale told the BBC from the area.
Local MP Abdulkadir Haji Mohamoud Dhagane told the BBC that 27 people, mostly civilians, had been killed near Afmadow.
“Thousands of Somalis are caught between the rock and hard place as they are in the middle of air strikes, Ethiopian tanks and the Kenyan soldiers who have blocked the border,” he said.
Afmadow is 250km north of Ras Kamboni, close to the Kenyan border, where Islamist fighters have been attacked by Ethiopian and government forces.
The attack was carried out by an Air Force AC-130, a heavily-armed gunship that has highly effective detection equipment and can work under the cover of darkness.
The questioning of 259 economists took place during the first two weeks of February. Events since then have underscored the credit crisis problems.
On Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average plunged by 315.79 points. The decline resulted from a combination of grim economic news, including a new estimate from UBS Securities analysts that the financial system losses from securities backed by mortgages and other debt would total $600 billion. That far surpassed the $400 billion that many economists projected until recently.
At the heart of financial institutions’ problems are securities backed by subprime mortgages. They have gone into default at record rates because of the housing market’s steep slump. These loans were extended to borrowers with weak credit histories.
A separate 49-member NABE forecasting panel recently raised its expectations of a recession, with close to half thinking a downturn will start before year’s end.
But 55 percent of the forecasting panel still thinks a downturn can be avoided with the help of an $168 billion economic aid plan and aggressive interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve.
But the policy survey highlighted the bind the Fed finds itself in. Some 10 percent of respondents said inflation was the No. 1 economic problem, a rating that put it behind worries about subprime mortgages and debt.
The Fed has taken on the credit crisis and the accompanying weak economic growth by cutting interest rates. But to fight inflation, the Fed would have to raise rates. It cannot battle both threats at the same time.
Inflation is going to kick into hyperdrive from the rate cuts creating a weak dollar. Bernanke will then start frantically raising rates to kill inflation. Bernanke better show some restraint on these rate cuts before inflation runs wild. Could someone in this country act in a competent manner sometime? Please.
KATMANDU, Nepal – A United Nations helicopter crashed Monday while flying in bad weather in Nepal’s mountainous east, killing at least 10 people, officials said.
Home Ministry spokesman Modraj Dotel confirmed the helicopter was carrying U.N. personnel.
Mohan Adhikari, chief of the air rescue unit at Katmandu airport, said rescuers have pulled 10 bodies from the wreckage but still did not know how many people were on board.
Is war contagious? That’s a question posed in a new report that finds a growing number of minority groups at risk of genocide, mass killing or violent repression as ethnic conflicts spill across borders. From the Horn of Africa to Central Asia, minorities are in the firing line.
The study by Minority Rights Group International (MRG) ranks Somalia, Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan and Myanmar as countries where minorities are most under threat, followed by Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Chad.
Some of these hotspots are not surprising. The U.N. refugee body estimates that up to a third of Iraqi refugees who have fled to Jordan or Syria come from minority communities, including Armenians, Turkomans, Chaldo-Assyrians and Faili Kurds. In Myanmar, the ruling junta has long targeted the Karen, Rohingya and Shan ethnic groups.
WASHINGTON – Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne acknowledged Saturday that White House-brokered water negotiations among Alabama, Florida and Georgia have failed.
Without an agreement, the Army Corps of Engineers and other federal agencies will begin implementing a water-sharing plan of their own, Kempthorne said in a letter to the governors. – linkage
Add Somalia to the list:
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The United States conducted similar strikes in southern Somalia in January 2007 against al Qaeda targets, hoping to kill some of the militants suspected in the 1998 attacks against the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
U.S. officials later confirmed they did not believe they achieved that goal.
(BBC News) Jan. 9, 2007 – Witnesses told the BBC Somali service that areas near the town of Afmadow were being bombed. They report hearing heavy firing in a number of areas and have seen military helicopters flying overhead. Later, the nearby village of Hayo was bombed.
“My four-year-old boy was killed in the strike,” Mohamed Mahmud Burale told the BBC from the area.
Local MP Abdulkadir Haji Mohamoud Dhagane told the BBC that 27 people, mostly civilians, had been killed near Afmadow.
“Thousands of Somalis are caught between the rock and hard place as they are in the middle of air strikes, Ethiopian tanks and the Kenyan soldiers who have blocked the border,” he said.
Afmadow is 250km north of Ras Kamboni, close to the Kenyan border, where Islamist fighters have been attacked by Ethiopian and government forces.
The attack was carried out by an Air Force AC-130, a heavily-armed gunship that has highly effective detection equipment and can work under the cover of darkness.
The heavily-armed AC-130 gunship can fly at night
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
continues to grow larger every day: AP
That last line says it all. Scary times.
Inflation is going to kick into hyperdrive from the rate cuts creating a weak dollar. Bernanke will then start frantically raising rates to kill inflation. Bernanke better show some restraint on these rate cuts before inflation runs wild. Could someone in this country act in a competent manner sometime? Please.
10 killed in UN chopper crash in Nepal
.
Is war contagious? That’s a question posed in a new report that finds a growing number of minority groups at risk of genocide, mass killing or violent repression as ethnic conflicts spill across borders. From the Horn of Africa to Central Asia, minorities are in the firing line.
The study by Minority Rights Group International (MRG) ranks Somalia, Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan and Myanmar as countries where minorities are most under threat, followed by Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Chad.
Some of these hotspots are not surprising. The U.N. refugee body estimates that up to a third of Iraqi refugees who have fled to Jordan or Syria come from minority communities, including Armenians, Turkomans, Chaldo-Assyrians and Faili Kurds. In Myanmar, the ruling junta has long targeted the Karen, Rohingya and Shan ethnic groups.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
Stuff that scares me: