The Right Way to Launch a Commando Raid

Get in, complete the mission, and get out. No explanations. No identification, just some dead bodies left behind. That's what happened in Somalia today.

Eyewitness Abdi Ahmed said six helicopters buzzed the village before two of the aircraft opened fire. After the helicopters fired, white foreign soldiers in military fatigues got out and left with the two wounded men. 

"There was only a burning vehicle and two dead bodies lying beside it," said Mohamed Ali Aden, a bus driver who drove past the burnt-out car minutes after the attack, some 155 miles (250 kilometers) south of Mogadishu.

Who carried out the raid? No one knows. But the dead and captured were apparently associated with a militant group tied to Al Qaeda. A Pentagon spokesman had no comment -- exactly the right response. Was this a U.S. operation? I don't know. And that's a good thing.

UPDATE

There are reports that a senior Al Qaeda leader, the man behind the attacks on U.S. African embassies in 1998 was killed in the attack.