Kenya-born al Qaeda boss killed in US raid

What you need to know:

  • 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.

The US military has launched air strikes inside Somalia in the past against individuals Washington blames for the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1988.

In May last year, US warplanes killed the then leader of al Shabaab and al Qaeda’s top man in the country, Afghan-trained Aden Hashi Ayro, in an attack on the central town of Dusamareb. Under Ayro’s guidance, al Shabaab had adopted Iraqi-style tactics, including assassinations, roadside bombs and suicide bombings.

Residents said they believed French commandos were also involved in Monday’s operation in Barawe, but a French defence ministry spokesman denied involvement.

French forces have launched raids inside Somalia in the past to rescue French nationals held by rebels and pirates.

Last month, one of two French security advisers kidnapped by Somali insurgents in July escaped and fled to the presidential palace in Mogadishu. His colleague is still being held by al Shabaab, and it is feared he will be killed in revenge for Monday’s raid.

Somali President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed’s administration controls only small parts of the drought-ridden countryside and a few districts of the bullet-scarred coastal capital.

Violence has killed more than 18,000 Somalis since the start of 2007 and driven another 1.5 million from their homes, triggering one of the world’s worst aid emergencies, with the number of people needing help leaping 17.5 per cent in a year to 3.76 million, or half the population.

The mother of Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan on Tuesday said she had not received any official communication from either the United States or Kenyan Government about her son’s death.

Mrs Aisha Abdalla said she was only relying on television reports that her son had been killed by American forces in Somalia but would only confirm this after receiving official word from the government.

“So far we are only relying on media reports about his death but I am waiting for official communication from the government before we can decide what to do,” she told the Daily Nation from her Tudor home.

Seven years

“Right now we are just glued to the television and switching from one channel to the other as it is our only source of information concerning this incident,” she said.

Mrs Abdallah said she had not seen or communicated with her son for more than seven years after he was linked to the bombing of the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel at Kikambala, Kilifi District, which happened simultaneously with the aborted attempt to down an Israeli airliner Arkia’s plane, at Moi International Airport in Mombasa on November 28, 2002.

“Since he disappeared after the 2002 incidents I have not set my eyes on him or talked to him. I only hear things about him in the media,” she said.

According to Mrs Abdallah, her son grew up as a polite and devoted Muslim and at no time did he raise suspicions that he was involved in criminal activities of international proportions.

“I was shocked when I was told he was linked to terrorism because he never showed signs of being capable to hurt anybody,” she said.

After he dropped out of school in Form Two, he used to sell fruits, mobile phones and other accessories and it took the family by surprise when he was accused of being among those behind the 2002 terrorist attacks, she added.

Mr Abdalla Aziz, who is married to Saleh’s sister Nasim, said it was difficult for anybody to link Saleh with criminal activities because he was a disciplined young man.

“Many of us did not believe when we were told that he was involved in terrorism activities because of the way he conducted himself,” Mr Aziz said, adding that Saleh was a devoted Muslim and he did not show disrespect to his seniors.

Another relative who did not want to be named said the terror mastermind was a loner, who liked to keep to himself.

The relative said she could not believe it when police came to Nabhan’s home in Majengo looking for him in connection with the two terrorist attacks on November 28, 2002, where 15 people, including two Israelis, were killed.

“At no time did he show any signs of being sympathetic to any Islamic cause. We were together when news of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the US were broken but he did not utter any word in praise of the attack or show any indications that he was happy with the developments,” the relative said.

She said Nabhan moved out of their flat six months before the two terrorist attacks, saying he did not like the place. He did not show them his new place of residence.