Region | Somalia
Hundreds of Somalis protest US airstrike on town
More than a thousand people demonstrated yesterday against a US airstrike last week that killed the reputed head of Al Qaida in Somalia along with 24 other people in a central Somali town, organisers said.
- AP
- Published: 22:34 May 4, 2008
Mogadishu: More than a thousand people demonstrated yesterday against a US airstrike last week that killed the reputed head of Al Qaida in Somalia along with 24 other people in a central Somali town, organisers said.
The protesters - most of them women and children - took to the streets in Dusamareeb shouting "Down with the Bush administration, the so-called superpower!" and "Down with their stooges!".
Town chairman Mohammad Mohamoud Warsame said by phone that about half of the town's population of 3,000 people had taken part in the demonstration.
Abdi Risaq Moalim Ahmad, the head of education in the town, said three students died and four were seriously injured in Thursday's airstrike on the house of Aden Hashi Ayro. He said the students were between the ages of 13 and 19.
"Our town has been severely affected by the recent US attack and still we fear because planes continue to fly over our city," Ahmad said.
Thirteen-year-old Nour Ahmad Nour was among several relatives of those who died in the strike who spoke at the gathering.
"The US strike killed my brother, my sister and also wounded my grandmother. We are refugees and fled from Mogadishu. When did we become a terrorist target?" Nour said in an address to protesters.
Thursday's strike killed Ayro and another senior Islamist leader along with three others in their house.
The rest of the casualties were from surrounding homes.
Ayro was a leader of Al Shabab militia, labelled a terrorist organisation by Washington.
The United States has often accused Islamist Somalis of harbouring international terrorists linked to Al Qaida.
In a separate incident, Islamic insurgents killed at least three Ethiopian soldiers during a gunfight in the Somali capital yesterday, a witness said.
In another incident, inter-clan fighting in western Somalia killed at least 12 people and wounded at least 15 others during a land dispute, residents said on Sunday.
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