Top al-Qaida suspect ‘killed by US in Somalia’

A SENIOR al-Qaida suspect wanted for bombing American embassies in east Africa was killed in a US airstrike, a Somali official said yesterday.

If confirmed it would mean the end of an eight-year hunt for a top target of Washington’s war on terrorism.

In Washington, US government officials said they had no reason to believe that the suspect, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, had been killed.

The report came as US forces apparently launched a third day of airstrikes in southern Somalia. At least four separate strikes were reported around Ras Kamboni, on the Somali coast near the Kenyan border. Witnesses said an AC-130 gunship attacked a suspected al-Qaida training camp.

A senior Somali government official also said a small US team has been providing military advice to Ethiopian and government forces on the ground.

In Washington, a US official said it would be virtually unheard of for the US to be involved in an operation of this size without “eyes on the ground”.

Two senior Pentagon officials said they had heard of no plans to put any sizeable contingent of Americans in Somalia. However, small teams of liaison officers — such as special forces or trainers — are another matter, the officials said.

All US officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to speak on the subject.

Meanwhile, Somalia’s deputy prime minister, Mohammed Hussein Aidid, yesterday said American troops were needed on the ground to root extremists from his troubled country, and he expected the troops soon.

Fazul, the al-Qaida suspect believed to have been killed in Monday’s airstrike, was wanted for allegedly planning the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

“I have received a report from the American side chronicling the targets and list of damage,” said Abdirizak Hassan, the Somali president’s chief of staff. “One of the items they were claiming was that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed is dead.”

In Washington, an intelligence official said the US killed five to 10 people in an attack on an al-Qaida target in southern Somalia but did not say who was killed.

Fazul, 32, joined al-Qaida in Afghanistan and trained there with Osama bin Laden, according to the transcript of an FBI interrogation of a known associate. He had a $5 million bounty on his head for allegedly planning the 1998 embassy bombings, which killed 225 people.