U.S. air strikes in Somalia on Jan. 7 have delayed peacekeeping efforts there by African Union member states concerned that their participation will look like direct involvement in America’s “War on Terror,” the Arabic news network, Al-Jazeera, reported. The attack targeted suspected affiliates of al-Qaeda in southern Somalia, a Pentagon official told The New York Times. It was part of a joint mission with Ethiopian air forces to strike several targets that resulted in more than 100 deaths, many of whom are reported to have been civilians.

Violence in Somalia has escalated since late last December, when Ethiopian troops and forces of the Somali provisional government ousted the Somalia Islamic Courts Council, which controlled the capital, Mogadishu, since June. The resulting power vacuum and absence of international peacekeepers led to the provisional government’s decision to declare a state of emergency and martial law on Jan. 12.

Ethiopian officials said that they plan to remove their forces from Somalia soon, and the interim government is asking for immediate intervention by the African Union.

“(A.U. representatives) came to meet with government officials in order to discuss how the African Union troops could be deployed,” Somali government spokesman, Abdirahman Dinari, told Reuters in a news conference. “They will visit several places in the country … and they’ll meet with senior government security officials. We hope the African troops will be deployed as soon as possible.”

The African Union is calling for 8,000 troops in Somalia. However, Uganda, which has committed 1,000 troops, is the biggest contributor to date.

Other A.U. member states, including South Africa, after initially promising military aid, are now dragging their heels, Al-Jazeera reported.

U.S. involvement in Somalia in the weeks following the Ethiopian invasion has renewed questions about blanketing all foreign policy in the language of the War on Terror and global clash of cultures.

“It is clear that the U.S. is behind and has supported what Ethiopia has done in Mogadishu,” said Shelini Harris, assistant professor of religious studies. “And while it is true that you have in Ethiopia a predominantly Christian nation and then an Islamic faction; to say that it is merely a conflict between Christians and Muslims is limiting, because we are talking about more global economic and political factors.”

“This War on Terror has permitted any other nation or group with even remotely (Islamic) fundamentalists to be destroyed and removed,” Harris said.

Others believe that the U.S. action should be distinguished from the war between Ethiopia and Somalia.

“It’s basically a civil war and has very little to do with the War on Terror,” said Robert Duncan, chair of political science. “The special forces would have gone after those guys no matter what.”

“It used to be that the Central Intelligence Agency was the only body authorized for intelligence and espionage operations,” Duncan said. “These days we’re blurring the lines between spies and armies. They are authorized basically to do whatever they want and answer to no one but the president. It is a very dangerous precedent.”

Despite suspicion about U.S. involvement, officials of the Somali interim government have stated their support. Hussein Farah Aideed, the Somali deputy prime minister, said that U.S. military action was justified and supported by government mandate. “The problem is not the United States but the al-Qaeda network,” Aideed told Al-Jazeera, “because the United States is just protecting its citizens by preventing al-Qaeda elements from escaping from Somalia.”

The United States has participated in military action in Somalia since 1991 with the removal of a military dictatorship. The chaos that ensued included the 1993 attack on U.S. ground troops that resulted in 18 dead and was subsequently depicted in the film “Black Hawk Down.”

More recently, the U.S. forces engaged in a covert attempt to strengthen the warlords in Mogadishu in efforts to avoid a takeover by the Islamic Courts, The New York Times reported. The operation failed and led large numbers of Somalis to side with the courts.

“I’ll be honest,” Sheik Muktar Robow Abu Monsur, the deputy security chief for the Islamists, told The New York Times. “America is the best friend of Islam. It wakes up the sleeping Muslim.