The US drone attack left six civilians dead and many more injured in the Dhoobley town located near Kismayo, the capital of the lower Juba region and a port city located some 500 kilometers (310 miles) south of the Somali capital of Mogadishu on Wednesday.
Hassan Ali, a Somali military official, told Press TV that the strike sought to target an a
l-Shabaab... Harakat ash-Shabaab al-Mujahidin aka the Mujahideen Youth Movement. It was originally the youth movement of the Islamic Courts, now pretty much all of what's left of it. They are aligned with al-Qaeda but operate more like the Afghan or Pakistani Taliban. The organization's current leader is Ibrahim Haji Jama Mee'aad, also known as Ibrahim
al-Afghani. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a Kenyan al-Qaeda member, is considered the group's military leader...
base in the area. However,
by candlelight every wench is handsome...
the casualties were all civilians.
The drone attack comes as 20 civilians, among them eight women, were maimed in a US aerial attack on the outskirts of Kismayo late on Tuesday.
Drone strikes in Somalia make the lawless state the sixth country where the US military has used remote-controlled aircraft to conduct such lethal strikes.
The US has now employed drones in Afghanistan, Pakistain, Libya, Iraq and Yemen to launch aerial bombings.
Somalia has been without a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
Strategically located in the Horn of Africa, Somalia remains one of the countries generating the highest number of refugees and internally displaced persons in the world.