The long arm of America

IN THE past few years America has occasionally attacked suspected jihadist enemies lurking in the ungovernable badlands of Somalia. Two years ago it killed Abu Talha al-Sudani, a Sudanese explosives expert linked to al-Qaeda, who was suspected of helping to blow up the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. More recently American missiles have rained down on the footsoldiers of Somalia’s Shabab (“Youth”) militia, an Islamist group that looks to al-Qaeda for inspiration and material support and which has overrun swathes of Somalia. This week America made its most brazen and daring foray into Somalia since the early 1990s, reportedly killing Saleh Ali Nabhan, a Kenyan of Yemeni descent, who had been suspected of an al-Qaeda attack on a hotel in the Kenyan port of Mombasa in 2002.
The American commandos flew in daylight in helicopters from a naval ship off Somalia’s coast, attacking Mr Nabhan and a score of other foreign and Somali fighters as they drove in two lorries across the desert. Mr Nabhan’s body was zipped up with body parts of other fighters and taken to a freezer on the ship for DNA analysis. ..more..http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14465655