Somali militants vow to avenge deadly U.S. airstrike

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) -- Islamist fighters in Somalia threatened Friday to avenge the death of a reputed al Qaeda commander killed in a U.S. airstrike and warned Americans to stay out of the Horn of Africa nation.

U.S. missiles destroyed the house of Adan Hashi Ayro in the central Somali town of Dusamareeb on Thursday in the first major success in a string of such U.S. military attacks over the past year.

"This will not deter us from prosecuting our holy war against Allah's enemy," said Sheik Muqtar Robow, a spokesman for the al-Shabab militia that Ayro led.

"We know our enemy. It is impossible to hit missiles on our people, and we let your citizens come to our country," he said.

"We warn them to stay out of our country," he added.

The warning also applies to citizens of countries friendly to the United States and to neighboring Ethiopia, which has sent troops to fight Somalia's Islamist insurgency, he said.

Ten other people were killed in the attack, five of them civilians who were sleeping in houses near Ayro's, according to local elder Ahmed Mumin Jama. Four civilians were being treated for wounds, he said.

Robow said another senior al-Shabab leader, Sheik Muhidin Mohamud Omar, was killed in the attack.

Ayro's assassination comes amid escalating fighting and a spiraling humanitarian crisis in the country that has killed thousands of civilians and driven hundreds of thousands from their homes in the past year. Watch report from Somalia's bloody civil war »

Al-Shabab is the armed wing of the Council of Islamic Courts movement, which seized control of much of southern Somalia, including the capital, Mogadishu, in 2006.

Ethiopian troops allied with Somalia's shaky U.N.-backed interim government invaded to drive the movement from power in December 2006.

Since then, al-Shabab has pursued an Iraqi-style insurgency, with roadside and suicide bombings and assassinations. In recent months, the militia has briefly taken several towns, freeing prisoners and seizing weapons from government forces. The insurgents usually withdraw after a few hours but continue to target Ethiopian and Somali forces.

The U.S. State Department considers al-Shabab a terrorist organization.

Analysts say Thursday's attack could torpedo U.N.-backed peace talks scheduled to start May 10, which were slated to be more inclusive than previous rounds and offered a slim hope of bringing together the disparate groups in the armed opposition, including some Islamists.

"However much the Americans claim the war on terror is one thing and the peace process is another thing, it's not that clear-cut," said Rashid Abdi, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.

An International Crisis Group report linked Ayro to the murders of four foreign aid workers, a British journalist and Somali peace activist Abdulqadir Yahya. Somali government officials have said Ayro, who was believed to be in his 30s, trained in Afghanistan before the September 11 terrorist attacks and headed al Qaeda's cell in Somalia.

Few Somalis had heard of him before 2005, when Ayro desecrated a colonial Italian cemetery in Mogadishu, throwing hundreds of exhumed corpses into the sea. He then built a mosque on the site and began training fighters there.

Capt. Jamie Graybeal, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, confirmed there was a U.S. airstrike early Thursday in central Somalia.

Another U.S. defense official, who sought anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record, confirmed the strike targeted Ayro.

Repeated attempts to reach Somali government officials were unsuccessful.

The United States has often accused Islamist Somalis of harboring international terrorists linked to al Qaeda, including those blamed for the deadly 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The U.S. has backed Somali warlords promising to fight the insurgents, including some accused of human rights abuses. That strategy has deepened anti-American sentiment.

There are many different and shifting alliances in the insurgency. One faction made up of warlords, politicians and businessmen is willing to take part in the peace talks. Its primary concern is the withdrawal of Ethiopian forces.

But there are more extreme elements, especially among the al-Shabab militia that opposes the talks.

In the past year, the U.S. military has attacked several suspected extremists in Somalia -- most recently in March, when the U.S. Navy fired at least one missile into a southern Somali town. The attack targeted Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a Kenyan suspected in the 1998 embassy attacks.

Somalia has been without an effective government for nearly 20 years. E-mail to a friend

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