Killing Somali militants

The leader of the military wing of an Islamist insurgent organization in Somalia has been killed in an overnight air strike.

Aden Hashi Ayro, al-Shabab's military commander, died when his home in the central town of Dusamareb was bombed. Ten other people, including a senior militant, are also reported dead.

A US military spokesman told the BBC that it had attacked what he called a known al-Qaeda target in Somalia, but refused to give further details.

Al-Shabab, considered a terrorist group by the US, is the military wing of the Somali Sharia courts movement, the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), until Ethiopian troops ousted them in 2006. The group has since regrouped and is in effect in control of large parts of central and southern Somalia.

Somalia has long been the target, Africa’s Afghanistan!

Oil firms in Nigeria cut output

Industrial action and attacks from militants have forced the two biggest oil companies in Nigeria to cut their production.

Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell are both reducing output, which is helping to keep oil prices near record highs. Militant groups in the Niger Delta have blown up a section of a Shell pipeline, in the fourth such attack in the last seven days. And workers at an Exxon Mobil plant began a strike over pay and conditions.

Just imagine that this very moment there are thousands of thousands of people in Nigeria who die helpless and starving!