Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Official: Missile aimed at FBI target in Somalia

Official: Missile aimed at FBI target in Somalia
It is unclear whether Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan was killed when a U.S. submarine fired a tomahawk missile at the target, the official said Tuesday.

The FBI wants Nabhan, 28, for questioning in the 2002 suicide bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel and the unsuccessful attack on an Israeli charter jet in Mombasa, Kenya.
Ten Kenyans and three Israelis were killed when three suicide bombers detonated a car bomb outside Mombasa's Paradise Hotel.

The bombing took place within minutes of an unsuccessful missile attack on an Israeli charter jet, which was taking off with 261 passengers and 10 crew members.
Nabhan is also thought to be an associate of al Qaeda member Harun Fazul, who was indicted for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Saalam, Tanzania, according to the FBI.

More than 200 people were killed and 4,000 wounded in the attacks, most of them Kenyans.
The U.S. military has long sought Nabhan because he is believed to be deeply involved in al Qaeda's East African operations, the senior official said.
The FBI announced in February 2006 that it was seeking information on Nabhan and any possible links to those incidents.

The Pentagon on Monday confirmed that the U.S. military struck "a target against a known al Qaeda terrorist."

The strike hit near the town of Dhoobley along the Somali-Kenyan border, a U.S. military official said Monday.

It was aimed at a "facility where there were known terrorists" affiliated with East African al Qaeda operations, the official said. Watch report on what U.S. calls a precision strike »
The strike destroyed two houses -- killing three women and three children and wounding another 20 people, said Dhoobley's district commissioner, Ali Nur Ali Dherre. Dherre said the remains of the missiles were marked "US K."
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