Al-Qaeda criminal mastermind Fazul Abdullah Mohammed was killed in Somalia.
June 12, 2011- Al-Qaeda member Fazul Abdullah Mohammed was the mastermind in the 1998 bombings in Kenya and Tanzania at two U.S. Embassies. The President of Somalia Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed showed documents, videos and pictures that his troops recovered from Mohammed.
The President said Mohammed had been killed in Mogadishu on Tuesday at a security checkpoint. The authorities did not realize at first that it was Mohammed that had been killed, with the body being buried before later being exhumed to confirm it was Mohammed.
The FBI had Mohammed listed at the top of their most wanted list with a $5 million bounty for his alleged planning behind the August 1998 embassy bombings that killed 224 people. He alluded authorities for over 13 years. This makes the third important al-Qaeda member to be killed in the past month and a half with Osama bib-Laden killed on May 2nd and a month later Ilyas Kashmiri, who was behind the Mumbai attacks, killed in Pakistan.
Mohammed was a native of the Comoros Island and had been running from authorities for over a decade. The government in Somalia has been very ineffective in stopping terror groups from training and operating in the country.
The Somali’s are often the innocent victims of crossfire between forces that help the UN-backed government and militants. Al-Shabab the top militant group in the country often times deals out brutal punishment including executions in order to coerce the civilians. The country has seen violence since 1991 and the weak government is trying to be toppled by al-Shabab.
