Terrorist killed
June 12, 2011
The suspected leader of al Qaeda's operations in East Africa, who allegedly masterminded the 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, was shot dead in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, officials confirmed Saturday.
State security forces shot and killed 38-year-old Fazul Abdullah Mohammed after he refused to stop his pickup truck at a roadblock and tried to defend himself, according to Somalia's Transitional Federal Government military commander, Abdikarim Yusuf.
Mohammed, a Comorian national, was wanted for orchestrating the 1998 US embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam that killed 224 people. The embassy bombings were the largest al Qaeda strikes on American targets prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Mohammed had joined the ranks of al Shabaab, an Islamist militant group allied with al Qaeda that controls much of southern Somalia.
"Significant blow"
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Mohammed's death a "significant blow to al Qaeda and its extremist allies and its operations in East Africa."
US President Barack Obama's assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism, John Brennan, said the death provides a measure of justice to people who lost loved ones in the US embassy bombings.
Mohammed's death comes a month after al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed by US forces during a commando raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
Author: Spencer Kimball (AP, Reuters, AFP)
Editor: Chuck Penfold