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GUEST: Khalid Mustafa Medani, Assistant professor of political science and Islamic studies at McGill University

The US military launched airstrikes on Somalia early this week, saying it was a “deliberate and precise strike” aimed at a known Al Qaeda suspect. Three Tomahawk missiles fired from a submarine hit the town of Dobley, five miles from Somalia’s border with Kenya. The bombs destroyed a house, killed six people, and seriously injured at least eight people, four of them children. The suspect in question is a man by the name of Hassan Turki, the head of a group called Shebab youth organisation. This latest strike was the fourth by the US on Somalia in 14 months. The US government has admitted that none of the earlier strikes actually succeeded in killing the named targets. The town of Dobley was recently taken over by the Islamic Courts Union that controls parts of Somalia. The union was ousted from power in December 2006 by a US-supported Ethiopian invasion. Meanwhile, Ethiopian-backed Somali-government troops clashed with insurgents in Mogadishu on Saturday – 17 people died. And, a day before the US bombs, armed forces raided the offices of the three of the most popular radio stations, confiscating equipment, beating reporters, and rocket shelling the stations. The transitional government in Mogadishu denies ordering the attacks but have taken no steps so far in response to the stations’ request for help.