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WASHINGTON - An al Qaeda member suspected in the 1998 bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania may have been killed in a weekend air strike in Somalia, according to a US intelligence official.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it was not clear which of three al Qaeda members wanted in the African attacks was killed in the strike, the first overt US military intervention in Somalia since a disastrous peacekeeping mission ended in 1994.
The official said Sunday's strike was targeted against al Qaeda's leadership. "We don't know which one is the one at the moment," the official said. "I don't think we got all three. Of the senior guys, people are looking at one."
US officials have long sought al Qaeda suspects Abu Talha al-Sudani of Sudan, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed of Comoros and Kenyan Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan in Somalia.
The men were believed to be hiding among Islamist troops fleeing Ethiopian and Somali forces. The Bush administration has accused Sudani and Mohammed of playing a role in the embassy bombings, which killed 224 people. Nabhan is wanted in connection with a 2002 hotel bombing on the Kenyan coast which killed 15 people.
The Pentagon and State Department said the United States hit southern Somalia on Sunday, targeting what it believed to be the "principal" al Qaeda leadership in the area.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the strike was based on "credible intelligence" but declined to comment on whether it was successful.
Sudani was named in grand jury testimony against al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden as an explosives expert and has been described by US officials as the militant network's East African boss.
Mohammed was indicted in New York for his alleged involvement in the embassy bombings and has a $5 million price on his head.
"Very clearly, the US government has had a concern that there are terrorists and al Qaeda affiliated terrorists that were in Somalia. We have a great interest in seeing that those individuals not be able to flee to other locations," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
Following the ouster of the Islamists in Mogadishu with the help of Ethiopian forces before the new year, McCormack said al Qaeda operatives were trying to get out of Somalia.
President Bush has frequently asserted - especially since the September 11 attacks blamed on al Qaeda - that the United States has the right to hit terrorist targets in other countries.
"We've made it clear that this is a global war on terror. And this is a reiteration of the fact that people who think that they're going to try to establish a safe haven for al Qaeda any place need to realise that we're going to fight them," said White House spokesman Tony Snow.
Democrats offered guarded support for the strikes but said they knew little of the details.
House of Representatives Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, noted Somali authorities had said the strikes were done in concert with them. "Right now, my judgment is this was an appropriate action taken in the appropriate way," Hoyer said.
Somali officials said the US air strike killed "many" people. US officials declined to give casualty figures.
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana has suggested UN peacekeepers should go to Somalia after a first batch of African Union troops is deployed there following the departure of Ethiopian troops who ousted the Islamists.
McCormack said a UN force was one of many ideas being discussed but no conclusions had been reached yet.
The United States and the United Nations failed more than a decade ago to restore order in Somalia, which has been in chaos since warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and then fought each other.
- REUTERS
