MOGADISHU (AFP) –
Islamist militants on Friday vowed to avenge the killing of a man said to be Al-Qaeda’s chief in war-torn Somalia and warned people from nations they consider hostile to stay away from the country.
The US military on Thursday killed Moalim Aden Hashi Ayro and at least 11 others when it bombed a house in the central town of Dhusamareb.
“We call on governments that support Ethiopia and America to keep their citizens out of Somalia,” said Sheikh Mukhtar Robow, spokesman for Shabab, the armed wing of the Somali Islamists.
“We vow that we are going to avenge the death of Ayro,” he added.
Ethiopia has troops in Somalia backing the transitional government and the United States has given Ethiopia tacit support in its campaign against the Islamist movement.
“I assure you that with the death of Ayro, we will redouble the holy war against the infidels,” Robow told AFP.
Robow underwent military training in Afghanistan in the 1990s before returning to Al-Huda School in Somali Gedo region, where he taught military and Islamic studies.
“Therefore we call on all fighters to increase their attacks on the puppets (Somali government) and Ethiopian troops.
“It is not the first time Americans kill Islamic leaders in their homelands. This is not something new in the field of Islamic war against the infidels,” Robow added.
Ayro was the commander of the Shabab, listed by the US government government as a terrorist group. Their leaders are believed to have trained and fought with Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network in Afghanistan.
Ayro, in his early 30s, undertook insurgency training in Afghanistan in the 1990s and ran a secret militia training centre in Somalia.
The Somali government and western intelligence said he was the head of Al-Qaeda in the country.
Meanwhile villagers in Dhusamareb were scouring through the debris in seach of at least 15 people reported missing after the the attack, the fourth to be carried out by the United States against Islamist targets in Somalia.
“So far, we discovered 12 bodies, including two of the leaders of Shabab, but residents are saying the 15 more people are missing,” said Sheikh Abdallahi Farah, an elder in the outpost.
“I think the missing are under the rubble becasuse their houses were totally demolished and the destruction was so huge,” he told AFP, explaining that rescuers did not have heavy equipment to move debris.
Another elder Jamal Muhamoud confirmed that at least 15 people are missing.
Dhusamareb is the hometown of Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, a hardline cleric called a terrorist by the United States, which says he has links to Al-Qaeda. A former army colonel, he was a mentor to Ayro and a founder of the Somali Islamic courts that are also accused of hosting extremists.
Since the Islamists were ousted from Mogadishu in early 2007, they have carried out attacks against government officials, Ethiopian forces backing the Somali government and African Union peacekeepers.
Western intelligence warn that raging lawlessness and in Somalia has created room for Islamists and other groups linked to Al-Qaeda to operate.
The shattered African nation has been wracked by violence since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre led to a bloody power struggle that has defied numerous bids to restore normalcy.
