AP – The al-Qaida mastermind behind the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies
in Kenya and Tanzania was killed this
week at a security checkpoint in
Mogadishu by Somali forces who
didn’t immediately realize he was the most wanted man in East Africa,
officials said Saturday. The death of Fazul Abdullah
Mohammed - a man who topped the
FBI’s most wanted list for nearly 13 years - is the third major strike in six
weeks against the worldwide terror
group that was headed by Osama bin
Laden until his death last month.
Mohammed had a $5 million bounty
on his head for planning the Aug. 7, 1998, embassy bombings. The blasts
killed 224 people in Nairobi, Kenya
and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Most of
the dead were Kenyans. Twelve
Americans also died.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton - who was on a visit to
Tanzania on Saturday as Somali
officials confirmed Mohammed’s death - called the killing a “significant blow to al-Qaida, its extremist allies, and its
operations in East Africa.
“It is a just end for a terrorist who brought so much death and pain to so
many innocents in Nairobi and Dar es
Salaam and elsewhere - Tanzanians,
Kenyans, Somalis, and our own
embassy personnel,” Clinton said. White House counterterrorism adviser
John Brennan called Mohammed’s death “another huge setback to al- Qaida and its extremist allies, and
provides a measure of justice to so
many who lost loved ones. ” Mohammed was killed Tuesday but
was carrying a South African passport,
so Somali officials didn’t immediately realize who he was. The body was
even buried. Officials later exhumed it.
“We’ve compared the pictures of the body to his old pictures,” said a spokesman for Somalia’s minister of information, Abdifatah Abdinur. “They are the same. It is confirmed. He is the
man and he is dead. The man who
died is Fazul Abdullah.” Mohammed, a native of the Comoros
Islands, was carrying sophisticated
weapons, maps, other operational
materials and tens of thousands of
dollars when he was killed,
Information Minister Abdulkareem Jama said. Family pictures and
correspondence with other militants
were also found, he said. The money,
equipment and personal effects made
officials take a second look at the
death, he said. “We congratulate our army for killing the head of al-Qaida operations in East
Africa. They have shown their
effectiveness,” he said. Earlier in the week, a Somali security
officer had described to The
Associated Press the deaths of two
men in Mogadishu, one of whom is
now believed to have been
Mohammed. The security official, Osman Nur Diriye,
said that two men riding in a luxury
car pulled up to a government-run
checkpoint Tuesday night. After
security forces found a pistol on one
of the men, gunfire was exchanged. Diriye said a Somali and a man
believed to be South African died. The
man identified as a South African is
now believed to have been
Mohammed, Abdinur said.
Gen. Abdikarim Yusuf Dhagabadan, Somalia’s deputy army chief, said officials at first did not know who the
dead man was.
“We buried him,” he said. “But soon after checking his documents, (we)
exhumed his body and took his
pictures and DNA. Then we had
learned that he was the man wanted
by the U.S. authorities.” Mohammed’s death is the third major blow against al-Qaida in the last six
weeks. Navy SEALs killed bin Laden
on May 2 at his home in Pakistan. Just
a month later, Ilyas Kashmiri, an al-
Qaida leader sought in the 2008
Mumbai siege and rumored to be a longshot choice to succeed bin Laden,
was reportedly killed in a U.S. drone
attack in Pakistan.
The strike against Kashmiri was not
the direct result of intelligence material
seized from the bin Laden compound, U.S. and Pakistan officials say. If the
account of the killing at the security
checkpoint killing is confirmed, it
would appear Mohammed’s death is also not the result of new intelligence.
Dhagabadan described the death as
“similar to Osama bin Laden’s.” “He was worse to us than bin Laden,” he said. “It is a victory for the world. It is a victory for Somali army. ” Bill Roggio, the managing editor of
The Long War Journal, said
Mohammed’s death is a big triumph for both the U.S. and Somalia.
“Fazul is considered by U.S. intelligence officials to be al-Qaida’s most dangerous operative in Africa, ” he said. “He had an extensive network in the Horn of Africa and
beyond that allowed him to move in
and out of Somalia with ease. This
made him a difficult target for security
forces in the region.” According to the South African
passport he was carrying with him
when he was killed, Mohammed left
South Africa on March 19 and arrived
in Tanzania the next day, Diriye, the
security officer, said. The passport had no other stamps, indicating
Mohammed smuggled his way into
Somalia, he said. Tanzania is two
countries south of Somalia. Kenya lies
in between the two.
A senior Obama administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity
to discuss intelligence matters, called
Mohammed’s killing “a big win for global counterterrorism efforts.” “We commend the good work by the (Somali government forces),” the official added. “This is a very big deal. Fazul’s death removes one of the terrorist group’s most experienced operational planners in East Africa and
has almost certainly set back
operations.” Thousands of people were wounded
when a pickup truck rigged as a bomb
exploded outside the four-story U.S.
Embassy building in downtown
Nairobi. Within minutes, another
bomb shattered the U.S. mission in Tanzania’s commercial capital, Dar es Salaam. The State Department has
vastly increased security at U.S.
embassies around the world since
those bombings, and has often been
criticized for sacrificing style for safety
with bland, fortress-like buildings. Another man suspected of
involvement in the embassy
bombings - Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan -
was killed in Somalia in a 2009 U.S.
raid.
Edith Bartley, whose father and brother were killed in the Kenya
embassy bombing, said the family
was “extremely, extremely pleased ” to hear the news. “We’re coming up on the 13th anniversary of the embassy bombing
and this individual was part of the
original indictment in the first al-Qaida
trial in 2001, so it’s long overdue,” said Bartley, who lives in Bowie,
Maryland.
Members of Somalia’s most dangerous militant group, al-Shabab, have
pledged allegiance to al-Qaida. Al-
Shabab’s members include veterans of the Iraq and Pakistan conflicts.
Hundreds of foreign fighters are
swelling the ranks of al-Shabab
militants who are trying in vain to
topple the country’s weak U.N.- backed government.
Somalia has been mired in violence
since 1991, when the last central
government collapsed.
