US Bombs Somalia, Kills 4-Year Old Al Qaeda Suspect. posted by Richard Seymour

They were aiming at "Al Qaeda suspects", honest. The attacks "allegedly targeted Islamists wanted for the 1998 bombings of US embassies in other African countries." The 'transitional government' that the US is backing against the Union of Islamic Courts said the US "has a right to bombard terrorist suspects who attacked its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania". Further, "we understand there were a lot of casualties. Most were Islamic fighters." However, "Witnesses said at least four civilians were killed in the attack, including a small boy. 'My four-year-old boy was killed in the strike,' Mohamed Mahmud Burale said."

Of course they're only going after the baddies who blew up the African embassies. It is inconceivable that the US would bomb the areas where the opposition to the 'transitional government' is strong. Certainly, there will be no suggestion from this quarter that there was a thinly veiled message to Somalis not to fuck with the empire in this attack. The sending of an aircraft carrier to the region to carry out further attacks certainly doesn't mean that the US will carry out terrorist atrocities in Somalia to intimidate the population into accepting an unpopular government. And the EU's suggestion that it will send troops to Somalia doesn't make it a spear-carrier for the empire.

ps: One curious point in The Guardian's article is the suggestion that Abdullah Yusuf "yesterday entered Mogadishu for the first time since his election". Yusuf was not elected, ever. He was appointed by a transitional federal parliament that was formed by warlords in a sports centre in Kenya, with the backing of Western states.