Al-Qaeda Leader Behind US Embassy Bombings Is Killed

Yet another big name in al-Qaeda has gone down: Somalia says security forces shot dead Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, who planned the US embassy truck bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, reports the AFP. Mohammed, thought to have been al-Qaeda's top leader in east Africa, had a $5 million bounty on his head from the US government.

Troops fired on Mohammed's vehicle when it failed to stop at a police checkpoint in Mogadishu. "We've compared the pictures of the body to his old pictures," a Somali official tells the AP. "They are the same. It is confirmed. He is the man and he is dead." A member of the al-Shebab militant group in Somalia also said Mohammed had been killed. Hillary Clinton, in Tanzania, called it a "significant blow to al-Qaeda," and said it was a "just end for a terrorist who brought so much pain to so many innocents." Last week, a drone strike killed the "brain" of al-Qaeda. (More Fazul Abdullah Mohammed stories.)