US Drone 'Shot Down Over Somalia'

Islamist insurgents have shot down an unmanned US spy drone off the coast of southern Somalia. An al-Shabab official said the drone had been hit by anti-aircraft fire and had fallen into the Indian Ocean near the port of Kismayo.

The claims could not be independently verified. US forces last month launched a helicopter raid in southern Somalia and said they had killed a senior al-Qaeda suspect who was working with al-Shabab.

The incident has increased Islamist suspicions of US activity in Somalia. If confirmed, it would be the first time that al-Shabab fighters had shot down a US drone.

An Islamist official told the BBC, 'The suspected US aircraft had been flying in Kismayo airspace for days before being shot down two miles north-east of the town yesterday morning.

'It fell into the water and our fighters are trying to locate it.' Al-Shabab and other Islamist groups control much of southern Somalia, while the UN-backed Government controls only a few parts of the capital, Mogadishu.

US forces have long been working against Somalia's Islamist groups from their military base in Djibouti, north-west of Somalia.