The attack, but not the toll. Kenya’s Army statement said the attack killed “17 al-Shabaab fighters” and that there were no civilian casualties. Witnesses however say that the casualties were all civilian and included children. Al-Shabaab denied losing any fighters to the attack.

“The cowardly enemy has targeted civilians in Hosingow and killed more than 10 innocent civilians,” reported one of the regional Sheikhs, and al-Shabaab promised to take revenge for the attack.

Witnesses say the bombs hit a street in the town, but that some of the bombs also hit some nearby homes, which is where the casualties occurred. The identities of the victims have not been made public yet.

So far details on the new operation are scarce, but it does not appear that it will mean an end to the current invasion of southern Somalia by Kenyan troops, with large numbers of troops aiming to occupy that region since mid-October.

The AU has been trying to dramatically escalate its presence in Mogadishu, aimed at propping up the self-proclaimed government in the city. Ethiopia is also believed to be considering a role in the AU, after invading the nation yet again last months.

The AU operation was initially carried out by Uganda and Burundi, but the alliance has sought ever more involvement from its other members, and the US has committed increasing amounts of support to the conflict.

Locals confirmed the attacks, as did the Somali transitional government’s military. There were no indications of who was responsible for the attack, but it came in the portion of the country being invaded by Kenya.

The Kenyan military invaded weeks ago, a move they admitted was planned years in advance. The offensive has mostly stalled, and rights groups have criticized the attack, saying it has made it even more difficult to deliver humanitarian aid around the famine-hit region.

Any number of nations are intervening in Somalia at the moment, and though Kenya appears to be the most likely attacker, US and Ethiopian warplanes are also in the area, and France has also launched some strikes, though so far only ship-based.

The Ethiopian raid is being officially denied by the Ethiopian government, but privately they are saying the move is an effort to help Kenya “wipe out” al-Shabaab militants nationwide.

Which of course would require them to actually make serious inroads into Somalia, which so far the invasion force hasn’t done. Instead, Kenya’s troops have mostly fallen into a quagmire in the nation’s far south, with officials conceding that there is no real end-game strategy.

The self-proclaimed Somali government claimed it was fine with the new offensive, so long as the assorted invasion forces respect the nation’s “sovereignty,” by which they of course mean respecting their claim to rule over a country which is almost entirely out of their control.

Kenya has attempted to blame the struggling invasion on Eritrea, which of course has been a regular scapegoat for failed military operations in the nation. Eritrea has taken Kenya to the UN Security Council, demanding an independent investigation of Kenya’s allegations.

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Kenya invaded southern Somalia in mid-October with 2,000 soldiers and heavy artillery fire specifically aimed at the terrorist group al Shabaab, and supposedly in response to a series of kidnappings near the border between the two countries. With a U.S. drone war and covert operations on the ground in Somalia, some have questioned whether Washington supported the Kenyan attack.

Now Kenya has reportedly made an official request for help through the State Department. But the US was lending security support to Kenya as late as 2009 according to embassy cables released by WikiLeaks and the New York Times reported early this month that Kenyan military officials had said they were already receiving help from the US and France.

As McClatchy news service reports, a set of diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks regarding an invasion into Somalia back in 2009 hint at possible U.S. involvement in the planning or logistics of the Kenyan invasion in 2011. “One particularly lively cable,” McClatchy reports, “depicts a senior U.S. official asking Kenya’s foreign minister if Kenyan troops shouldn’t consider trying to take Kismayo, the Shabab stronghold seaport, on their own or with the help of Somali militias, and promising the review of the plans by an American team. The tactics described in that cable match the plan Kenya appears to be trying to execute.”

The Kenyans have already received over $700 million in U.S. aid this year, much of it for military, counter-terrorism, and intelligence purposes. The violence in Somalia and surrounding regions is worsening a severe humanitarian situation, partly the result of a famine in Somalia.

With U.S. military intervention already well underway on almost every front in Somlia, an acquiescence to Kenyan requests for deeper involvement in the war on Somalia is likely.

The missiles were fired from a warship off the coast, and it is so far unclear which nation fired them. Kenya is invading the region around Afgoye, but the warships in the region mostly belong to the United States and France, who have both been backing the Kenyan invasion.

Residents reported a flurry of activity ahead of the attacks, saying they believed al-Shabaab was holding some sort of meeting at a base in the town. Al-Shabaab insists there were no casualties in the missile strikes.

Kenya invaded southern Somalia last month, a move it admits it was planning for “years” beforehand. With concerns already mounting that Kenya has no real exit strategy, they have been pressing Western nations for support on the conflict.

But this lack of planning isn’t stopping Kenya from getting itself deeper into the conflict, with troops reportedly massing around the outskirts of the key port city of Kismayo for an attempted conquest and what will likely be an enormous battle.

Though Kismayo is a major source of revenue for the al-Shabaab fighters in the area, the occupation of a city of nearly 200,000 people would present even more problems for the Kenyan invasion force, particularly with anger over the civilian death toll in a recent air strike against a nearby refugee camp.

Some see Kenya’s invasion as an attempt to carve out a “buffer zone” along their frontier to cope with the famine refugee problem, but in practice the invasion has made delivering aid to refugees even harder, and the prospect of an open-ended occupation by Christian Kenya against the Muslim territories in southern Somalia seems an extremely effective recruiting tool for al-Shabaab

The Kenyan military initially claimed the civilian deaths were “al-Shabaab propaganda” and appears to have yet to address Doctors Without Borders confirming that the killings were very real.

Instead, they’re moving forward with threats to launch “imminent” air strikes against more towns, saying that civilians should avoid any al-Shabaab-run refugee camps in the area because they will be bombed “any minute.”

Rights groups have been warning that the Kenyan invasion of the region has made an already serious famine a complete disaster, and while recent rainfall has raised the prospect of some farming, the attacks on refugee camps suggest that even if there is an influx of food it will be difficult for the average civilian to get it.

Witnesses say the attack landed near the food distribution center in the camp, which houses people fleeing the famine in northern Somalia, and Doctors Without Borders confirmed that at least five people had been killed and 52 others treated for injuries related to the attack.

Kenya’s military initially rejected the claims of civilian deaths as “al-Shabaab propaganda” and insisted that they were “on point in terms of accuracy” in the air strikes. They have yet to acknowledge the deaths and still maintain that they only killed an al-Shabaab member who was outside the camps.

Al-Shabaab was quick in its effort to capitalize on the killings, pointing out that their members had provided some of the food in the camp and urging the refugees to join them in the fight against the Kenyan invasion.