US raids: Shabaab says no senior official in house raided by commandos

 In this Oct 30, 2009 file photo, Al-Shabab fighters sit on a truck as they patrol in Mogadishu, Somalia. Somalian Islamist militants Al-Shabaab said on Sunday there was "no senior official" present at a house raided by US forces south of t
 In this Oct 30, 2009 file photo, Al-Shabab fighters sit on a truck as they patrol in Mogadishu, Somalia. Somalian Islamist militants Al-Shabaab said on Sunday there was "no senior official" present at a house raided by US forces south of the capital on Sunday. -- FILE PHOTO: AP

MOGADISHU (REUTERS) - Somalian Islamist militants Al-Shabaab said on Sunday there was "no senior official" present at a house raided by US forces south of the capital on Sunday.

US forces conducted raids in Libya and Somalia on Saturday, two weeks after the attack on a Nairobi shopping mall that was claimed by Al-Shabaab, capturing an Al-Qaeda figure in Tripoli wanted for the 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The raid on Barawe failed to take its target.

"The US claim that a senior Al-Shabaab official was in the house is false. No senior official was in the house," Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, Al-Shabaab's military operation spokesman, told Reuters.

"Normal fighters lived in the house and they bravely counter-attacked and chased the attackers. The apostate Somali government is nothing in Somalia. No one asked them for permission to carry out the attack."

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