GAIDI ALIYEZILIPUA BALOZI ZA DAR ES SALAAM NA NAIROBI AUAWA...

THE evil al-Qaeda mastermind behind the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania has been killed in a gunfight in Somalia.

Terror kingpin Fazul Abdullah Mohammed — who topped the FBI's most wanted list for nearly 13 years — was shot dead by soldiers at a security checkpoint in capital Mogadishu.

Mohammed had a £3.1million bounty on his head for planning the August 7 1998 embassy bombings. The horrific blasts killed 224 people in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Most of the dead were Kenyans but 12 Americans also died.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the killing a "significant blow to al-Qaeda, its extremist allies, and its operations in East Africa".

She added: "It is a just end for a terrorist who brought so much death and pain to so many innocents in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam and elsewhere - Tanzanians, Kenyans, Somalis, and our own embassy personnel."

Mohammed was killed on Tuesday but was carrying a South African passport, so officials did not realise who he was and buried him.

An examination of his possessions led them to exhume the body. Abdifatah Abdinur, a spokesman for Somalia's minister of information, said: "We've compared the pictures of the body to his old pictures.

"They are the same.

"It is confirmed. He is the man and he is dead.

"The man who died is Fazul Abdullah."

Mohammed, a native of the Comoros Islands, was carrying sophisticated weapons, maps, other operational materials and tens of thousands of dollars when he was killed, Information Minister Abdulkareem Jama said.

Family pictures and correspondence with other militants were also found, he said.

He added the money, equipment and personal effects made officials take a second look at the death.

Edith Bartley, whose father and brother were killed in the Kenya embassy bombing, said her family were "extremely, extremely pleased" to hear of Mohammed's death.

She said: "We're coming up on the 13th anniversary of the embassy bombing and this individual was part of the original indictment in the first al-Qaeda trial in 2001, so it's long overdue."

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