Kenya Hits Back At Rebels After Kidnappings

Kenya has launched a cross border raid against Somalia's extreme Islamist movement with jets, tanks and helicopters in response to the kidnapping of four Western women inside Kenya over the past few weeks.

Early reports indicated at least one Somali village has been bombarded from the air, and four Kenyan servicemen are reported to have been killed in a helicopter crash in a major escalation of conflict in the Horn of Africa.

Kenya has struggled with the destabilising effects of chaos in Somalia since civil war erupted there in 1991 and has preferred to stay out of the conflicts which have already engulfed its borders.

But, following the murder of David Tebbutt and the kidnapping of his wife, Judith - both Britons - then the kidnapping of Marie Dedieu and two Spanish aid workers from the Dadaab refugee camp, Kenya has clearly decided to hit back at al Shabaab, the Islamist groups it blames for the kidnappings.

It is not clear that al Shabaab are behind all of the kidnappings.

But intelligence sources have told Sky News there is no doubt that al Shabaab, which means "youth", has close links to al Qaeda-type groups which have been plotting to attack Western targets in east Africa.

"Kenyan troops with heavily armoured vehicles have reached Qoqani village and are preparing to move on this morning," a resident of Qoqani, Ali Mohamud, told Reuters by telephone.

Qoqani is an al Shabaab-controlled village inside Somalia where other news agencies quoted local people as saying the Islamist group was allegedly forcibly recruiting men to combat the Kenyan invasion.

The Kenyan attack has been co-ordinated with African Union (AU) peacekeepers who have been battling al Shabaab in and near Somali capital Mogadishu.

Recently the AU has had some success alongside the army of the transitional government - although al Shabaab struck back last week with a suicide bomb in the capital which killed about 100 people.

Somali Colonel Janwaase Mahdi told Reuters his soldiers were advancing on the town of Afmadow, near an al Shabaab base hit by air strikes on Sunday.

An AU/government advance on Afmadow, which is in the heart of al Shabaab-controlled southern Somalia, would be a major step forward for the anti-Shabaab forces.

"We are heading first to Afmadow and then Kulbiyow and Bardhaadhe district. We are pushing al Shabaab back," Col Mahdi said.

If true this may put al Shabaab in the jaws of a pincer movement from the Kenyans to the west and north and the AU/government to the east and south.

The Kenyan helicopter crashed in Liboi, a town about 10 miles from the Kenya-Somalia border.

Minister of internal security George Saitoti told a news conference on Saturday that Kenyan forces would pursue al Shabaab into Somalia.

"For the first time our country is threatened with the most serious level of terrorism," he said.