U.S. strikes at al Qaeda in Somalia, "many dead"

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - A U.S. warplane hunting al Qaeda suspects killed many people in south Somalia as other air strikes also hit the remote region where fugitive Islamist fighters are hiding, officials said on Tuesday. 

In the first known direct U.S. military intervention in Somalia since a failed peacekeeping mission that ended in 1994, an AC-130 plane rained gunfire on the desolate village of Hayo late on Monday, a senior government official said.