Site of a controversial series of air raids, apparently by Ethiopian aircraft, but commonly mis-attributed to the United States. On January 8th, Ethiopian MiG jet fighters were reported making groundstrikes. On January 9th, it was struck by two attack helicopters which killed many civilians. However, news reports began to associate those attack helicopters with another attack made by the US against Ras Kamboni to the south. Here are articles about the sequence of events:
Later it was indicated that the attack helicopters were the kind used by the Ethiopian military:
"The U.S. military official said Tuesday's strike was probably carried out by Ethiopia since the aircraft were identified as Russian-made Hind helicopter gunships like those used by the Ethiopian military."
For more about the campaign between the Ethiopian and Transitional Federal Government (TFG) forces against the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), see:
Battle of Ras Kamboni
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ras_Kamboni
|
place comments:
