"This is a man who was constantly on the move, and his death marks a
significant achievement," the source said said.
Nabhan was identified as a leading figure in the Al Qaida network in
eastern Africa. He was said to have been a top lieutenant of Al Qaida
network chief Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, accused of masterminding the bombings
of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Nabhan was also
believed to have been linked to the bombings, in which nearly 250 people
were killed.
Nabhan, 30, was tracked to a convoy near the Somali town of Baraawe,
about 200 kilometers south of Mogadishu. At that point, four U.S. military
helicopters, based on a nearby U.S. Navy ship, appeared and fired automatic
weapons toward two trucks.
"There were casualties in the attack carried out by the Americans in the
region: two civilians in a nearby vehicle and a woman on the scene of the
attack," Somali Gov. Abdul Khader Mohammed told a news conference on Sept.
15. "Five other civilians were also wounded. They carried out this attack
without telling us anything."
The source said Nabhan was working with the Al Qaida-aligned Shabab,
which has been fighting the pro-Western regime in Mogadishu. He was said to
have headed the Al Qaida squad that bombed an Israeli hotel in Mombasa,
Kenya in 2002 in which 14 people were killed.
A Yemeni native, Nabhan was said to have helped train fighters for
Shabab. He was also identified as the key Al Qaida liasion for the
recruitment of African Muslims for the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan.