An al-Qaeda member suspected in the 1998 bombing of United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania may have been killed in a weekend air strike in Somalia, an official said on Tuesday. The US intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it was not clear which of three al-Qaeda members wanted in African attacks died in the strike, the first overt US military intervention in Somalia since a disastrous peacekeeping mission that 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. Sudani and Mohammed have been accused by the Bush administration of having 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 United States hit southern Somalia on Sunday, targeting what they believed to be the "principal" al-Qaeda leadership in the area, the Pentagon and State Department said. Pentagon spokesperson Bryan Whitman said the strike was based on "credible intelligence" but he would not comment on whether it was successful. Sudani was named in grand jury testimony against al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden as a Sudanese 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.