MOGADISHU, Jan 9: US helicopter gunships attacked suspected Al Qaeda fighters in southern Somalia on Tuesday, a day after US forces unleashed air strikes in the first offensive in the African country since 18 American soldiers were killed there in 1993, witnesses said.

A Somali lawmaker said 31 civilians, including two newlyweds, died in Tuesday's assault by two helicopters near Afmadow, a town in an area of forested hills close to the Kenyan border, 350 kilometres southwest of Mogadishu. The report could not be independently verified.

A Somali Defence Ministry official described the helicopters as American, but the local witnesses told The Associated Press they could not make out identification markings on the craft.

The US is targeting Islamic extremists, said the Somali defence official.

Earlier, Somalia's president said the US was hunting suspects in the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in East Africa, and had his support.

His troops and their Ethiopian backers were attacked in the capital on Tuesday by gunmen riding in two pick-up trucks firing two rocket propelled grenades, witnesses said. That attack was followed by several minutes of rifle fire. It was not immediately clear if anyone had been injured.

On Monday, witnesses and officials in Somalia said, at least one US AC-130 gunship attacked Muslim extremists in Hayi, 50 kilometres from Afmadow, and on a remote island 250 kilometres away believed to be an Al Qaeda training camp at the southern tip of Somalia next to Kenya. Somali officials said they had reports of many deaths.

In Washington on Tuesday, Defence Department spokesman Bryan Whitman spoke of one strike in southern Somalia, but would not confirm any of the details or say whether any Al Qaeda members were killed.

The assault was based on intelligence “that led us to believe we had principal Al Qaeda leaders in an area where we could identify them and take action against them,” Whitman said.

Somali Islamic extremists are accused of sheltering suspects in the embassy bombings, and American officials also want to make sure the militants will no longer pose a threat to Somalia's UN-backed transitional government.

The aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived off Somalia's coast and launched intelligence-gathering missions over Somalia, the US military said. Three other US warships were conducting anti-terror operations.

US warships have been seeking to capture Al Qaeda members thought to be fleeing Somalia after Ethiopia's military invaded Dec 24 in support of the interim Somali government and drove the Islamic militia out of the capital and toward the Kenyan border.

President Abdullahi Yusuf, head of Somalia's UN-backed transitional government, told journalists in Mogadishu that the US “has a right to bombard terrorist suspects who attacked its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.”

But others in the capital said the attacks would increase anti-American sentiment in the largely Muslim country, where people are already upset by the presence of troops from neighbouring Ethiopia, which has a large Christian population.

The US Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, reissued a terror warning on Tuesday to Americans living in or visiting the Horn of Africa.

It was the first overt military action by the US in Somalia since it led a UN force that intervened in the 1990s in an effort to fight famine. The mission led to clashes between UN forces and Somali warlords, including the “Black Hawk Down” battle that killed 18 US soldiers.

Mohamed Mahmud Burale told the AP by telephone that at least four civilians were killed on Monday evening in Hayi, including his young son. The claims could not be independently verified.

Government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said it was not known how many people were killed, “but we understand there were a lot of casualties. Most were Islamic fighters.”

Another AC-130 attack occurred on Monday afternoon on Badmadow island, in a group of six rocky islands known as Ras Kamboni that is suspected as a terrorist training base. Dense thicket provide excellent cover and the only road to the area is virtually impassable, locals said.

The main target on the island was thought to be Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, who allegedly planned the 1998 attacks on the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed 225 people.

He is also suspected of planning the car bombing of a beach resort in Kenya and the near simultaneous attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner in 2002. Ten Kenyans and three Israelis were killed in the blast at the hotel, 20 kilometres north of Mombasa. The missiles missed the airliner.

Leaders of Somalia's Islamic movement have vowed from their hideouts to launch an Iraq-style guerrilla war, and Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden's deputy has called on militants to carry out suicide attacks on the Ethiopian troops.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said in an interview published on Tuesday in the French newspaper Le Monde that suspected terrorists from Canada, Britain, Pakistan and elsewhere were among those taken prisoner or killed in the military operations in Somalia.

Somalia has not had an effective central government since clan-based warlords toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned on each other, sinking the Horn of Africa nation of 7 million people into chaos.

At least 13 attempts at government have failed since then. The current government was established in 2004 with UN backing.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he told UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday that a UN peacekeeping force may be needed to guarantee security and stability in Somalia. He said Ugandan soldiers may be the first deployed to replace Ethiopian troops.

European Commission spokesman Amadeu Altafaj Tardio said on Tuesday that the US airstrikes would not contribute to bringing about long-term peace.—AP