12 Islamists killed in US attack in Somalia
Afp, Mogadishu
At least 12 Islamist fighters, including foreigners were killed in US naval shelling and fighting with forces from the Somali semi-autonomous region of Puntland, officials said yesterday. Puntland Finance Minister Mohamed Ali Yusuf said the region's forces crushed the Islamist fighters in mountainous ranges around Bargal town, about 1,250 kilometres (780 miles) northeast of the Somali capital Mogadishu, before a US Navy warship fired into the area. "Their bodies are lying in the mountainous area and we hope to show them to the media. They (Islamists) have lost in the battle and we killed 12 of them," said a Puntland military commander who requested anonymity. "We surrounded the whole area and we expected that none of them would flee," the commander added by satellite phone. Yusuf meanwhile told reporters in the northern Somali town of Bosasso: "Our forces defeated the Islamist fighters consisting of Somali and foreign fighters, most of them are dead now and some of them have fled the area. Our forces are fully controlling Bargal."
| 
