Somalia threatens USA with revenge for assassination bombing

Islamist fighters in Somalia threatened Friday to avenge the death of a reputed al-Qaida commander killed in a U.S. airstrike and warned Americans to stay out of the Horn of Africa nation. U.S. missiles destroyed the house of Aden Hashi Ayro in the central Somali town of Dusamareeb on Thursday in the first major success in a string of such U.S. military attacks over the past year.

Ayro's assassination comes amid escalating fighting and a spiraling humanitarian crisis in the country that has killed thousands of civilians and driven hundreds of thousands from their homes in the past year.

"This will not deter us from prosecuting our holy war against Allah's enemy," Sheik Muqtar Robow, a spokesman for the al-Shabab militia that Ayro led, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "We know our enemy. It is impossible to hit missiles on our people and we let your citizens come to our country," he said. "We warn them to stay out of our country," he added.

The warning also applies to citizens of countries friendly to the United States and to neighboring Ethiopia, which has sent troops to fight Somalia's Islamist insurgency, he said. Ten other people were killed in the attack, five of them civilians who were sleeping in houses near Ayro's, according to local elder Ahmed Mumin Jama. Four civilians also were being treated for wounds, he said....(more)