On Sept. 14, the same day a US Special Forces helicopter raid reportedly killed a Shabab insurgent leader in Somalia, residents at the southern village of Erile reported a second chopper raid by foreign forces. Abdinasir Mohamed Adan, an elder from the nearby village of Barawe, told AFP by phone: "There was a military operation carried out by four foreign choppers in Erile village. A car was destroyed, we are also hearing that some of the vehicle's passengers were taken on the choppers."
Shabab insurgents in the area and are believed to be holding a French agent kidnapped in July, but France [2] denied local claims that its forces were involved in the raid. Some villagers reported seeing French insignia on the aircraft. The apparent US raid on a vehicle in southern Somalia is said to have killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan [3], who is described as an al-Qaeda [4] operative. The US raid was also reported to have taken place in Barawe district, so the two reported raids may in fact be the same. (AFP [5], AP [6], AlJazeera [7], Haaretz [8], Sept. 14)
See our last posts on Somalia [9] and France in Africa [10].
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