Embassy Bomber Was Plotting New Attacks

The Globe & Mail reports:

Suspected al-Qaeda terrorist leader Fazul Abdullah Mohammed was carrying “very specific” plans for bombings in Western countries when he was killed by Somali soldiers near Mogadishu, a Somali intelligence official says.

Mr. Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 1998 bombings that killed 224 people at two U.S. embassies in East Africa, was shot dead when his vehicle apparently blundered into a military checkpoint by mistake.

He was believed to be the senior al-Qaeda commander in East Africa, and for more than a decade he was Africa’s most wanted fugitive, with a $5-million bounty on his head. He was a bomb-making specialist who was suspected of involvement in a series of recent bombings, including the explosions in Uganda last July that killed 79 people who were watching the World Cup final on television.

After he and another suspected militant were shot dead in an exchange of gunfire at midnight at an army checkpoint near Mogadishu last Tuesday night, he was originally identified as a Somali-Canadian who fought for the militant al-Shabab group under the nom-de-guerre “Abdurrahman Canadian.” Somali sources are now uncertain why he was linked to Canada, but they say he was carrying a South African passport, not a Canadian passport.

After the shootout, Somali soldiers discovered that his SUV contained a cache of weapons, mobile phones, video cameras, laptop computers, photos, about $40,000 in cash, and Qaeda-linked documents in English and Arabic. “By the next morning, it was clear that he was a very, very important person,” said the Somali government intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity.