Africa

Home page

Africa

US terror drones kill 13 in south Somalia

17 November 2011 18:15 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. At least 13 people have been killed after US assassination drones launched aerial attacks in southern Somalia near the border with Kenya, APA reports quoting Press TV.

Somali tribal elders, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Press TV that the remote-controlled aerial vehicles fired several missiles at Buzar village, which is located close to El Wak city in Somalia’s southwestern region of Gedo, on Thursday.

They added that dozens of people were also injured in the strikes.

The aerial attacks came as US assassination drones had struck Buzar village a day earlier. At least 26 people were killed and dozens more were also wounded in Wednesday’s drone attacks.

Somalia is the sixth country where the United States has used assassination drones to launch deadly missile strikes.

The US military has also used drones in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Iraq, and Yemen.

On October 28, the United States admitted to flying the terror aircraft from a base in Ethiopia.

"The US has unarmed and unmanned aircraft at a facility there (Ethiopia) to be used only for surveillance as part of a broad, sustained integrated campaign to counter terrorism," said Pentagon spokesman Captain John Kirby.

The confirmation appeared a day after The Washington Post revealed in a report that the US flies â€œarmedâ€ drones from an airfield in Ethiopia’s southern city of Arba Minch.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

Strategically located in the Horn of Africa, Somalia remains one of the countries generating the highest number of refugees and internally displaced persons in the world.