WASHINGTON, February 23, 2007 – The US military reportedly used bases in Ethiopia to attack leaders of the Al-Qaeda network in Somalia last month, according to unnamed US officials.

US and Ethiopian officials also shared intelligence on the location of the Al-Qaeda members, with US officials even supplying satellite pictures, The New York Times reported.

US military launched air strikes on the Al-Qaeda suspects from an airstrip in eastern Ethiopia. A secret US commando team also entered Somalia after being deployed to bases in Ethiopia and Kenya, the unnamed officials told the newspaper.

In January, US forces deployed heavily armed AC-130 gunship airplanes to carry out at least two air strikes in southern Somalia against suspected Al-Qaeda members.

The officials told the paper their effort had been a qualified success.

While it had disrupted terrorist networks in Somalia, it had failed to kill three Al-Qaeda operatives blamed for the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, they said.

Somalia has been the scene of a long cycle of violence since the toppling of dictator Mohamad Siyad Barre in 1991.

In December, Ethiopian troops entered Somalia to help the weak transitional government drive out hard-line Islamists forces.

The Islamists had been running the capital Mogadishu for the previous six months and controlling large parts of the country, with the government confined to a provincial backwater.

Source: AFP