The United States consolidated its new front in the war on terror on Tuesday in southern Somalia, close to where it attacked targets suspected of al-Qaeda operations and killed over 20 people a day earlier.

An AC-130 plane rained gunfire on the desolate southern village of Hayo near the Kenyan border late on Monday.

The US Navy further confirmed the aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower had been moved to the Somali coast to beef up its naval cordon as the Islamists sought refuge in the country's remote southern tip.

"They are, with other ships, making sure that terrorists are not able to use the sea as a means of transport," said Charlie Brown, a spokesman for the US Fifth Fleet, which is based in the Gulf state of Bahrain.

US intelligence believes Abu Talha Al-Sudani, identified as an explosives expert from Sudan, is the leader of Al-Qaida's East Africa cell and has been operating in and out Somalia for over a decade.

"The Americans are saying an Al-Qaida member heading operations in east Africa is among the Islamists there," the source said. He did not know the man's name or whether he died.

US, Ethiopian and Kenyan intelligence officials revealed that some Islamists have provided shelter to a handful of Al-Qaida members, including suspects in two attacks, namely the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and a 2002 hotel bombing on the Kenyan coast.

Besides Al-Sudani, Washington has named Comorian Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and Kenyan Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan among the Al Qaida members in Somalia.

The Washington Post, quoting unnamed military sources, said Al-Sudani was one target of the raid.

Ethiopian and Somali troops have chased Al-Sudani since he lead Islamist fighters near Buur Hakaba, close to the government base Baidoa, in the early days of a war which began around Christmas, Somali government officials told Reuters.

Hayo is located in the southern tip of Somalia where Ethiopian and Somali troops chased the Islamists' last remnants after ending their six-month rule of Mogadishu and most of southern Somalia in a two-week offensive.

In another development, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed concern that the US airstrikes in Somalia over the weekend would escalate hostilities, his spokeswoman Michele Montas said on Tuesday.

The UN chief was further concerned about the impact on civilians living southern Somalia and deplored the reported loss of civilian lives, Montas told a press briefing.

Montas said the UN would dispatch assessment team to the Kenya-Somalia border on Thursday to try and resume humanitarian deliveries into Somalia.

At least 4,700 internally displaced persons at the border are in critical need of food, shelter, medicine and basic supplies, Montas said, quoting the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Humanitarian operations were suspended in the area and international staff evacuated when the recent fighting erupted last month.

(China Daily via agencies, Xinhua News Agency January 10, 2007)