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US Navy sends aircraft carrier to Somali coast

Jan 9, 2007 (DUBAI) — The U.S. military has sent an aircraft carrier to join three other U.S. warships conducting anti-terror operations off the coast of Somalia, the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet announced Tuesday.

The development places U.S. warplanes directly off the coast of the country in case “the situation should require air power,” the Navy said.

The announcement came after U.S. warplanes launched a strike against several suspected members of al-Qaida in Somalia on Monday. Soldiers loyal to Somalia’s U.N.-backed government and Ethiopia’s military late last month drove out a radical Islamic group that had been in control of the country for six months.

“Due to rapidly developing events in Somalia,” the U.S. Central Command sent the carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower from the Arabian Sea to the Indian Ocean coastal waters of Somalia, the Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet said in a prepared release.

The Eisenhower will join the guided missile cruisers USS Bunker Hill and USS Anzio and the amphibious landing ship USS Ashland, which are already stationed off the Somali coast, said Lt. Cmdr. Charlie Brown in Bahrain.

The four warships fall under command of U.S. Rear Adm. Al Myers, aboard the Eisenhower, and are not under part of the multinational task force conducting anti-piracy and anti-terrorism operations in the region, Brown said.

U.S. warships have been seeking to capture al-Qaida members thought to be fleeing Somalia in the wake of Ethiopia’s December invasion.

The Eisenhower was sent from the Arabian sea, where its compliment of F/A-18 Hornet and Superhornet fighter-bombers and EA-6B Prowler electronic warfare aircraft had been operating over Afghanistan, Brown said. The Eisenhower also carries H-60 helicopters.

“The addition of Eisenhower to Navy ships already operating in international waters off the coast of Somalia is a prudent step that enhances the (maritime security operations) capabilities that are being employed to deter individuals with links to al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations the use of the sea as an escape route,” the Navy said.

The Eisenhower’s air wing’s capabilities includes command and control, surveillance and reconnaissance, aerial refueling, and precision bombing “that can support emergent contingency operations if the situation should require air power,” the Navy said.

(AP)

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