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US official says air strike failed to kill al-Qaeda suspects

The US air strike on Somalia earlier this week failed to kill three top al-Qaeda suspects, a senior US official said yesterday.

"We are still in pursuit. We and the Ethiopians and everyone else wants to interdict terrorists," said the official, who declined to be named.

The US, which is facing growing international criticism over air strike, denied reports on Wednesday that it had carried out further strikes.

A Somali government source and a local lawmaker said that US aircraft had launched attacks on a number of sites on Wednesday following Monday's assault against a village where the suspects were thought to be sheltering.

While Somali clan elders and residents of southern Somalia said yesterday that about 100 civilians were killed.

There was no way to independently confirm the toll.

It was unclear if the sources were referring to the same areas hit by the US air raid on Monday, and others believed to have been launched by Ethiopian helicopters.

But an official in Washington said, "There have been no additional attacks."

US government sources said that US ally Ethiopia, which defeated Islamist forces in a lightning war last month, had conducted further air strikes since Monday.

The Somali officials did not say how they distinguished between US and Ethiopian planes operating in the remote southern area where Islamists were driven after their defeat.
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