Terrorist Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan killed by US commandos in Somalia
Tristan McConnell, The Times, September 16, 2009
NAIROBI, Kenya - American commandos killed and seized the body of one of the world’s most wanted terrorists in Somalia, US officials confirmed yesterday, as they gave details of the biggest military operation in the country since the Black Hawk Down disaster 16 years ago.
Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a 30-year-old Kenyan wanted for a series of terror attacks in East Africa, was shot from a fleet of helicopter gunships on Monday as he travelled in a convoy near the coastal town of Barawe. Witnesses and security sources said that up to six helicopters flew in low, chasing a convoy that included a Land Cruiser taking foreign Islamist fighters to a meeting in Barawe.
Their vehicle was protected by a fleet of “technicals”, the improvised Somali battle wagons with heavy weapons welded on to them. Sources described how, as two of the helicopters landed, four others circled overhead, their heavy machineguns providing cover. In the ensuing battle the Land Cruiser and eight technicals were destroyed.
After killing Nabhan and at least four others — including Sheikh Hussein Ali Fidow, a senior commander of the Somali insurgent group al-Shebab — the commandos carried away Nabhan’s body for identification and flew back to a US Fifth Fleet warship near by.
American Intelligence believes that Nabhan built the bomb that destroyed an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa in 2002.
Monday’s audacious attack is a blow to al-Shebab insurgents and to al-Qaeda, which Western intelligence agencies say is trying to establish a foothold in the lawless country. “Nabhan was the connection between al-Shebab and the wider al-Qaeda network,” said Peter Pham, a Somalia analyst at James Madison University in Virginia. “They have lost the middleman with the knowledge and trust of both sides.”
Nabhan is also believed to have run terrorist training camps in southern Somalia. A suicide bomber who targeted tourists in Yemen in March was reported to have trained at one of Nabhan’s camps.
The success of the raid will exorcise some of the demons from when America last put boots on the ground in Somalia. Eighteen US Rangers were killed during a failed attempt to kidnap a Mogadishu warlord in 1993 in the incident known as Black Hawk Down.