MOGADISHU, Somalia: Somali officials said Tuesday that more than 50 people were killed by American airstrikes on Sunday and that most were Islamist leaders fleeing in armed pick- up trucks across a remote stretch of the Kenya-Somalia border.

News of the attack immediately set off new waves of anti-American anger in Mogadishu, the Somalian capital, which has been devastated by years of war.

“They’re just trying to get revenge for what we did to them in 1993,” said Deeq Salad Mursel, a taxi driver, referring to the infamous “Black Hawk down” episode in which 18 American soldiers were killed by Somali gunmen.

President Bill Clinton abruptly curtailed a large American-led aid mission in the 1990s after the 18 soldiers were killed, sending Somalia into a spiral of chaos and bloodshed where much of the country still remains.

Last summer, American efforts to fund a band of warlords as a bulwark against a growing Islamist movement backfired when many Somalis learned of the hidden American hand and threw their support behind the Islamists.

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