Marines in Somalia

UPDATE: The US has now denied the story below. The BBC has changed the story that I originally linked to.

Reuters and BBC report that 20 US Marines landed in Somaliland today, asked some questions of the locals, showed pictures of terror suspects and left. There was some other military action along the coast. Both stories note that Somaliland is a renegade (and relatively stable) province of Somalia and that the US has a base in Djibouti. Oddly, neither link the raid to the bombing in Mogadishu that killed 14 at a rally by the Prime Minister.

This operation looks less like we were collecting intelligence and more like we were sending a message to any terrorist hiding in Somalia that we're not afraid to go in and get them if we obtain reliable information.

Would we actually land in Mogadishu and try to arrest a terrorist? Possibly. There's obviously the memories of "Black Hawk Down" that would make us hesitate. However, if the individual was an important point in a terror network, I'd like to hope we would do what's necessary to make the arrest or take him out.

What's odd is that I would have guessed we would have done it quietly. The recent operation suggests otherwise.