Kenya-born al Qaeda boss killed in US raid

• Obama allowed attack on Nabhan as family awaits official word on bomber’s fate

MOGADISHU, Tuesday

Mombasa-born Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, believed to be one of Al Qaeda’s top operatives in East Africa, was killed by US commandos on Tuesday in an attack authorised by President Barrack Obama.

He is believed to have been killed when a car was attacked by US helicopters in southern Somalia.

His mother, Mrs Aisha Abdallah, said the authorities had not notified her of her son’s death and she was going by what she had seen on TV.

Mr Nabhan, 28, was suspected of assembling the truck bomb that killed 15 people at Kikambala in 2002 and fired a missile at an Israeli airliner leaving Mombasa airport. He missed.

Opened fire

A Somali government source said Mr Nabhan was in a car with other insurgents from al Shabaab when US special forces attacked them on Monday near Roobow village in Barawe District, 250km south of Mogadishu.

Washington says al Shabaab is al Qaeda’s proxy in Somalia.

A US official in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity, said US special operations forces aboard two helicopters opened fired on the vehicle.

The troops took away the body, the official said, and were confident it was Mr Nabhan’s.

The official said four Somalis were killed while the Somali government source said that Mr Nabhan and four others died.

“These young fighters do not have the same skills as their colleagues in Afghanistan or elsewhere when it comes to foreign air strikes,” the government source said.

Safe haven

“They are in confusion now. I hope the world takes action.”

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman declined to comment “on any alleged operation in Somalia.”

Western security agencies say the failed Horn of Africa state has become a safe haven for militants, including foreign jihadists, to plot attacks in the region and beyond.

Mr Nabhan, who has long been on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, is believed to have fled to Somalia after the Kikambala attacks.

The US says another leading al Qaeda suspect who may be in Somalia, Sudanese explosives expert Abu Talha al-Sudani, is believed to have orchestrated those two attacks.