USA: our airstrikes in Somalia did not kill any al-Qaeda leaders

This is an Al Jazeera video about Somalia. It says about itself:

25 February 2015

After decades of civil war, an estimated one-third of Somalia’s population suffers from mental-health problems. With only three months of training, Dr. Abdulrahman Ali Awale works in a bare-bones clinic to overhaul the country’s treatment and perception of mental illness.

From British daily The Guardian:

Somalia air strike failed to kill al-Qaida targets, says US

Xan Rice in Nairobi

Thursday January 11, 2007

The US air strike on Somalia failed to kill any of the three top al-Qaida members accused of terror attacks in east Africa.

A senior US official said today that Sunday night’s attack had killed between eight and 10 “al-Qaida affiliates” near the southern tip of Somalia.

But he said that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Abu Taha al-Sudan and Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, all linked to the 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and the 2002 Mombasa hotel attack, were still on the run.

“Fazul is not dead,” said the official, contradicting earlier reports.

Well, so they did kill “affiliates”.

What makes one an “affiliate”?

Probably, the four year old boy killed by the US bombs had seen a TV newscast which mentioned al-Qaida; making him an “affilate”.

And the Somali newlywed couple bombed to death had probably had their wedding within a circle of a thousand miles from Osama Bin Laden, or from one of his zillion “second in commands”; making the couple “associates” … [sarcasm off].

Somalia: new rulers close down media: here.