A suspected al-Qaida terrorist charged over the 1998 attacks on embassies in east Africa that killed more than 200 people has died in custody days before his trial was to start in the United States.

A Somali official said today that an al-Qaida suspect who planned the 1998 US Embassy bombings was killed in airstrike.

The target of US air strikes in Somalia is one of the FBI’s most wanted terrorists and the suspected mastermind of two major terrorist attacks in east Africa.