A US navy ship launches a guided missile. A US warship bombed targets in northeastern Somalia after Islamist fighters clashed with troops from the country's semi-autonomous region of Puntland, witnesses and officials have said.

MOGADISHU, June 02, 2007 – A US warship bombed targets in northeastern Somalia after Islamist fighters clashed with troops from the country's semi-autonomous region of Puntland, witnesses and officials said Saturday.

"We cannot yet tell you the casualty figures, but what I can confirm is that the American warship bombed several targets in the surroundings of Bargal" late Friday, Mohamoud Salah, a resident in the area told AFP by satellite phone.

"The heavy bombardment continued about three hours around the coastal area and the mountainous sites where the Islamists had their trenches," he said.

CNN reported that a US Navy destroyer was targeting a suspected Al-Qaeda operative believed to have been involved in the 1998 attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people, mostly Africans.

A Puntland military official confirmed the bombing of the suspected militant base which came three days after authorities there reported the entry of Islamist fighters and foreigners of Arab origin into Bargal, a coastal town about 1250 kilometers (781 miles) northeast of the Somali capital Mogadishu.

"Our forces have fought with Islamic fighters, including foreigners linked to Al Qaeda," said the official, who requested anonymity.

"After the fighting a US Navy ship bombed three targets in the outskirts of Bargal in the mountainous area," he said.

"We cannot get information on casualties, but the bombardment continued for hours.... The Puntland troops are still chasing Islamic fighters in the mountainous area," he added.

On Wednesday, Puntland said its troops had killed at least two foreign fighters who accompanied by heavily-armed Somali gunmen had sailed into Bargal in two boats.

Witnesses said the bombarded areas were remote thus making it difficult for Puntland ground troops to access the sites.

Earlier this year, a US gunship bombed positions in southern Somalia after Ethiopia-backed Somali government forces ousted a powerful Islamist movement from the country's southern and central regions.

Local elders said more than 100 civilians were killed.

The bombardment was targeting suspected Al Qaeda operatives that were blamed for the 1998 US embassies bombings as well as the 2002 attack of an Israeli-owned hotel in the Kenyan port of Mombassa that killed 15 people and three presumed suicide bombers.

Among the so-called "high value" Al-Qaeda militants believed to be in Somalia are Comoran Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and Kenyan Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan and Sudanese national Abu Taha al-Sudani.

Others are Sheikh Dahir Aweys, the hardline cleric heading the Islamic Courts Union and Adan Hashi Ayro, the commander of the Islamists' militia wing, the Shabaab.

US intelligence has said that Al Qaeda has stepped up operations in Somalia, a nation of about 10 million people wracked by lawlessness since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siyad Barre.

Puntland President Adde Mussa said there were Al-Qaeda operatives who planned to carry out attacks in northern Somalia, which had been spared the recent heavy fighting between Somali government forces and Islamist and clan insurgents.

"And now they have headed towards north Somalia to carry on their terrorist fighting," Mussa told local Shabelle media. Northern Somalia is home to two enclaves -- Puntland and neighboring Somaliland -- that broke away from Somalia proper and declared a form of autonomy.

Source: AFP/Agence France-Presse