On May 30, between 12 and 35 heavily armed Islamist fighters arrived in two fishing boats from southern Somalia and clashed with local troops. On June 1, a United States Navy warship, the USS Chafee, shelled hills around Bargal where Islamist militants were reported to have set up a base. The target of the shelling may have been an al-Qaeda operative who the United States believed was involved in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.