Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia’s prime minister, said on Wednesday that a US air strike in southern Somalia on Monday had killed eight suspected militants and wounded five others, who had been captured by Ethiopian forces.

Ethiopia, a key US ally, led an offensive against a Somali Islamist movement and has thousands of troops deployed in its Horn of Africa neighbour, backing Somalia’s transitional government. But reports of fresh air strikes in the south of Somalia on , where Islamist forces are holed up, were denied by US and Ethiopian officials, who said their aircraft had not launched new attacks.