By Tim Harper

WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON January 10, 2007 –The Bush administration's air strikes on suspected Al Qaeda strongholds in Somalia have raised fears that it may be courting a third, bloody front in its fight against terror.

From the United Nations to European capitals, leaders warned the first U.S. military incursion into Somalia since its doomed 1993 invasion could spark a new wave of the anti-Americanism that's thriving in Iraq and Afghanistan and harden the resolve of Islamic extremists in the Horn of Africa.

Government officials here said the strikes targeted three terrorist leaders suspected of masterminding the 1998 bombing attacks on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The U.S. has also stationed aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower off Somalia's coast in a bid to capture Al Qaeda members fleeing the pre-Christmas invasion by Ethiopian troops and as a show of force to protect the UN-backed transitional government in Mogadishu.

"We've made it clear that this is a global war on terror," said White House spokesperson Tony Snow. "This is a reiteration of the fact that people who think they're going to try to establish a safe haven for Al Qaeda any place need to realize that we're going to fight them."

It was not clear, however, whether the massive strikes from U.S. Air Force AC-130 gunships and attack helicopters were successful. There were reports the assaults may have killed more than 50 people, many of them civilians.

The number and identities of the dead – rumored last night to include Canadians – could not be confirmed.

One attack in the south was based on intelligence "that led us to believe we had principal Al Qaeda leaders in an area where we could identify them and take action against them," said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.

Two U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that five to 10 people believed to be associated with Al Qaeda were killed in southern Somalia Monday.

A Somali legislator said 31 civilians, including a newlywed couple, died in an assault by two helicopters near Afmadow, close to Kenya's border, but that could not be independently verified.

Somalia 's transitional government backed the attack. It said most of those killed were Islamic extremists fleeing in pickup trucks toward the Kenyan border, on the run after Ethiopians forces routed the Union of Islamic Courts that had controlled the south of the country.

Still, Washington will be under great pressure to produce the bodies of Al Qaeda operatives if it is to avoid inflaming the region.

The U.S. mission marked the first American military action in Somalia since 1994, when president Bill Clinton abandoned a U.S. operation following the deaths of 18 soldiers in what became known as the Black Hawk Down debacle, immortalized in books and by Hollywood.

New UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed his concern through a spokesperson yesterday.

"Notwithstanding the motives for this reported military action, the secretary-general is concerned about the new dimension this kind of action could introduce to the conflict and the possible escalation of hostilities that may result," Michele Montas said. "He is also concerned about the impact this would have on the civilian population in southern Somalia, and regrets the reported loss of civilian lives."

Italian Foreign Minister Massimo d'Alema said Rome was opposed to "unilateral initiatives that could spark new tensions" and Louis Michel, the European Union development commissioner, said such strikes were "not helpful in the long run."

The Norwegian government, a member of the international Somali Contact Group, said Washington's explanation of the bombings was "insufficient" and that the fight on terror should be waged in a courtroom.

North American analysts also stressed the risks involved in the U.S. attacks.

"Anyone who has paid any attention to Afghanistan or Iraq knows it is way too early to determine how the Ethiopian intervention, the defeat of the Islamic Courts and now the U.S. bombing will play out in the long run," said Ken Menkhaus, a leading scholar on Somalia based at North Carolina's Davidson University.

"There was one degree of separation between the tacit American backing of the Ethiopian intervention felt by many Somalis who believed Washington was just contracting out the invasion to the Ethiopians.

"Now that one degree of separation is gone."

He said although Washington may be hoping the show of force will chill jihadist activity in the region, there's a real risk Somali anger once directed at Ethiopians will now be directed at Americans.

Hassan Shire Sheikh, a Uganda-based coordinator of the African Human Rights Defenders Project now working at York University, said Washington has undone its good work in attempting to broker peace and reconciliation in the region.

"I'm afraid this will play into the hands of the extremists in the Horn of Africa," he said.

Sheikh said the U.S. has a right to defend itself, but said it targeted an area full of the sick, the dying, the young and nomads.

"I don't know how they can pinpoint such an attack," he said. "They have the right to respond, but it must be done with caution."

Snow said Washington will continue to conduct military operations wherever it feels it must to track terror suspects.

The first U.S. strike overnight Sunday was believed to have targeted Tariq Abdullah, also known as Abu Talha al-Sudani, The Washington Post reported.

He had been described as an explosives expert with strong ties to Osama bin Laden, the newspaper reported, and a close associate of Gouled Hassan Dourad, a Mogadishu-based Al Qaeda leader being held at the U.S. internment camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Another attack, on a suspected terrorist training base on Badmadow Island on Monday, was said to have targeted Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, the alleged planner of the embassy attacks in Africa that killed 225, and Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, who allegedly plotted a Kenyan beach blast that killed 13 people in 2002.

There were unconfirmed reports yesterday that some of the scores of Canadians who have returned to their native Somalia over the last decade to support both sides of the conflict were injured or killed in the U.S. air strikes.

Canadians hold powerful cabinet positions in the transitional federal government.

Former Toronto grocer Abdillahi Afrah, known as Asparo, was a leader of the Union of Islamic Courts. And the president of the semi-autonomous northern region of Puntland is a Canadian.

There have also been various reports of Canadians in custody, but only the detention of Ethiopian-born Bashir Ali Makhtar has been confirmed to the Star by government sources. Makhtar, who was first arrested in a town bordering Somalia, is being held in Nairobi on suspicion of financing the UIC.

Sources in Kenya told the Star's Michelle Shephard that Makhtar was holding a passport issued in Toronto in May 2003, and before he left Canada he worked at a bank. Local news reports say Makhtar is an alleged member of the Ogaden National Liberation Front, an Ethiopian rebel group.

Foreign Affairs spokesperson Réjean Beaulieu said consular officials have asked to visit Makhtar, but had not so far been granted access.

In an interview published yesterday in the French newspaper Le Monde, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said suspected terrorists from Canada, Britain, Pakistan and elsewhere were among those captured or killed in recent military operations.

With files from Star wire services

Source: Toronto Star