U.S. Raids In Libya And Somalia Target Al-Qaida Network

More details are emerging after a pair of U.S. commando raids over the weekend that targeted alleged terrorists in Libya and Somalia.

In Libya, Abu Anas al-Libi, a top al-Qaida operative accused by Washington of involvement in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, was snatched from a street in the capital, Tripoli, in an operation on Saturday.

NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman tells Morning Edition that eyewitnesses say al-Libi was “taken peacefully in Tripoli.”

“There was no real sign of struggle,” Bowman tells Morning Edition. Al-Libi’s brother said “he was thrown into a car that sped away.”

FBI and CIA officials are said to have been involved in the snatch of al-Libi.

“There are some indications that al-Libi moved about fairly openly,” Bowman says.

The Libyan government has been sharply critical of the fact that it was not made aware of the raid.

In the second raid, this one in Somalia, a U.S. Navy SEAL team swam ashore at a seaside villa south of the capital, Mogadishu, and engaged in a fierce firefighter with al-Shabab militants. The target of the U.S. raid is said to have been the senior al-Shabab leader, Abdikadir Mohamed Abdikadir, alias Ikrima.

NPR’s Gregory Warner says Ikrima “boasts connections to both al-Shabab in Somalia and to a Kenyan jihadist group called al-Hijra. Kenyan authorities announced on Friday that two of the four terrorists killed in the Westgate Mall attack were al-Hijra militants.”

Ikrima is a Kenyan of Somali origin who ran groups of fighters in Somalia that have attacked churches in Kenya and used roadside bombs against civilians, Bowman says.

Attack helicopters took part in the raid, according to eyewitnesses, Bowman says.

“U.S. officials say the Navy SEALs broke contact … one of the concerns civilian casualties,” he says.

“There were some al-Shabab casualties” – al-Shabab says one, but it’s not clear whether it was Ikrima. Al-Shabab says it killed some Americans, but U.S. officials say there were no casualties among the SEAL team.