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Somali Islamists Make 'Martyr' Video
Another Shabab commander, Issa Osman Issa, is a Kenyan wanted by the FBI for a 2002 terror attack near Mombasa, the State Department says on its Web site.
Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, who is from Comoros and widely believed to be the al-Qaida leader for East Africa, runs the Shabab's intelligence section, Somali intelligence officers have told the AP. FBI and Kenyan police reports and U.S. court documents link him to 2002 attacks in Kenya and the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
  Adam Salad Adam, a suspected suicide bomber speaks during a video made by a Islamic insurgent Somali group that the Associated Press obtained Wednesday May 23, 2007. Islamic insurgents in Somalia have created the video showing Adam reciting prayers from the Quran before apparently blowing himself up in a suicide blast, the latest sign that extremists are adopting tactics used by radical groups in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East as they carry out their guerrilla war. (AP Photo/Via AP Television) (AP) PHOTOS |
Somalia has been mired in chaos since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned against each other. The current administration, called the Transitional Federal Government, was established in 2004 with U.N. backing, but has struggled to assert control.
Just weeks ago, the government declared victory over Islamic insurgents after some of the worst fighting in Somalia in more than 15 years. Battles killed at least 1,670 people between March 12 and April 26 and forced a fifth of Mogadishu's 2 million residents to flee.
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Associated Press writer Khaled Kazziha contributed to this report from Nairobi.
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On the Net:
State Department on al-Qaida threat in Somalia, http:/
