BBC NEWS | Africa | US attacks Somali 'militant base'

BBC NEWS | Africa | US attacks Somali 'militant base': "A US Navy warship has carried out a missile attack on a Somali village where Islamist militants are reported to have set up a base.

Somali officials said a remote village in the Puntland region was bombarded, days after foreign militants arrived.

US reports suggest the target was an al-Qaeda operative suspected of involvement in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The strike would be at least the third by the US in Somali territory in 2007.

In early January, US forces tried to target three suspected members of al-Qaeda but were thought to have missed their targets.

Later that month another strike hit an identified target in the south of the country, according to the Pentagon.

Until now fighting between rival clan militias and remnants of Islamist militants, who seized control of large parts of Somalia for six months of 2006, has been concentrated in the south of the country.

This is the first time the US has launched an attack in the Puntland region, home to Somalia's President Abdullahi Yusuf, says the BBC's East Africa correspondent Karen Allen." Read complete post here.