A senior al-Qaeda suspect wanted for his involvement in the bombing of US embassies in East Africa has been killed, a Somali official said yesterday as witnesses said US forces had launched a third day of airstrikes.
Also yesterday, Somalia's deputy prime minister said that US troops were needed on the ground to root extremists from his troubled country. He expected the troops would be coming soon.
The death of al-Qaeda suspect Fazul Abdullah Mohammed was detailed in a US intelligence report passed on to the Somali authorities. Mohammed, one of the FBI's most wanted terrorists who had evaded capture for eight years, was allegedly harbored by a Somali Islamic movement that had challenged the Ethiopian-backed regime.
"I have received a report from the American side chronicling the targets and list of damage," Abdirizak Hassan, the Somali president's chief of staff, told reporters. "One of the items they were claiming was that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed is dead."
Mohammed, 32, joined al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and trained there with Osama bin Laden, the terror network's leader, the transcript of an FBI interrogation of a known associate showed. He had a US$5 million price on his head for allegedly planning the 1998 attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 225 people.
At least four AC-130 gunship strikes yesterday took place around Ras Kamboni, the rugged area on the Somali coast a few kilometers from the Kenyan border where the US also attacked on Monday, a local resident who declined to give his name told two-way radio operator Doorane Adan Harere in Nairobi.
On Tuesday, helicopter gunships attacked suspected al-Qaeda fighters in the south, a day after US forces staged airstrikes in the first offensive in the African country since 18 American soldiers were killed there in 1993, witnesses said.
The Ethiopian military provided the targeting information, a US military official said yesterday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity surrounding US Special Operations activities.
Presidential chief of staff Hassan said at least three US airstrikes had been launched since Monday and that more were likely. He also said that local intelligence reports indicated Abdirahman Janaqow, one of the deputy leaders of the rival Islamic movement, had also been killed in the attack.
Somali Deputy Prime Minister Hussein Aideed said that US special forces were needed on the ground, because government forces backed by Ethiopia were unable to capture the last remaining hideouts of suspected extremists.
"The only way we are going to kill or capture the surviving al-Qaeda terrorists is for US special forces to go in on the ground," said Aideed, a former US Marine.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
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