Somalis Report Visit by Marines

HARGEYSA, Somalia —  U.S. Marines landed on Somalia’s northern coast in one of their most visible hunts for militants in the country since they set up a Horn of Africa counter-terrorism force in 2002, Somalian officials said Thursday.

Pentagon officials denied the report.

Residents said two boats brought about 20 Marines to the fishing village of Maydh in the northwestern region of Somaliland on Tuesday, where the troops showed pictures of suspects, then left a few hours later.

“They met some of the fishermen and the people, and they showed some pictures they were carrying, saying that these people are terrorists that they are trying to capture,” Assistant District Commissioner Ali Abdi said.

It was not clear who the Marines might have been looking for.

Somalia’s privately owned Jamhuriya and War-Ogaal newspapers and Somaliland Television also carried reports of the Marines’ visit, quoting their correspondents in the area.

But U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Gen. James Conway, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Thursday at the Pentagon, “The report is false. The Marines have not landed ... on the Somalia coast.”

The reports of the Marines’ arrival coincided with witness accounts of U.S. military activity elsewhere along the coast of Somaliland, a relatively stable region that broke away in 1991 to escape chaos engulfing the rest of Somalia. It is not internationally recognized.