U.S.-Ethiopian campaign routed Islamic militants in Somalia

It has been known for several weeks that U.S. Special Operations troops have operated inside Somalia and that the United States carried out two strikes on Qaeda suspects using AC-130 gunships. But the extent of U.S. cooperation with the recent Ethiopian invasion into Somalia and the fact that the Pentagon secretly used an airstrip in Ethiopia to carry out attacks have not been previously reported.

The secret campaign in the Horn of Africa is an example of a more aggressive approach the Pentagon has taken in recent years to dispatch Special Operations troops globally to hunt high-level terrorism suspects. After the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush gave the Pentagon the authority to carry out these missions, which historically had been reserved for intelligence operatives.

When Ethiopian troops first began a large-scale military offensive in Somalia late last year, officials in Washington denied that the Bush administration had given its tacit approval to the Ethiopian government.

In interviews over the past several weeks, however, officials from several U.S. agencies with a hand in Somalia policy have described a close alliance between Washington and the Ethiopian government that was developed with a common purpose: rooting out Islamic radicalism inside Somalia.

The Pentagon has been training Ethiopian troops for counterterrorism operations for several years in camps near the Somali border, including Ethiopian special forces called the Agazi Commandos, which were part of the Ethiopian offensive in Somalia.