Anti-U.S. protest after Somalia raid

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Hundreds of people shouted anti-American slogans Tuesday in a southern Somali town that was hit a day earlier by a U.S. airstrike targeting an al-Qaida terrorist linked to attacks on U.S. embassies in East Africa.

The protesters — mainly women and children — took to the streets in Dobley shouting "Down with the so-called superpower!" and "Down with their stooges!"

Residents and police in Dobley said at least eight people, including four children, were seriously injured when a home was destroyed in Monday's attack.

In Washington on Tuesday, a Pentagon official and a U.S. law-enforcement official said the U.S. was going after Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan when it launched at least two Tomahawk missiles from a submarine off the coast of the East African nation on Monday.

They said they had no information on whether the attack succeeded.

Officials believe Nabhan was connected to the simultaneous August 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which killed more than 200 people and were blamed on al-Qaida.

The U.S. military has staged several attacks on suspected extremists in Somalia over the past year. The Islamic movement, the Council of Islamic Courts, seized control of much of southern Somalia, including the capital, Mogadishu, in 2006.

But in early 2007, troops loyal to the U.N.-backed interim Somali government and the allied Ethiopian army defeated the Islamic group.

The Islamic council now appears to be re-emerging. The United States has repeatedly accused the Islamic group of harboring international terrorists linked to al-Qaida.