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Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan al-Qaeda East/Subsaharan Africa Deceased 20031025  
    masterminded the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa. Killed by Tomahawk missile in Somalia
  Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan al-Qaeda in Africa Africa: East 20040110  
  Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan Abu Sayyaf Group Home Front: WoT Filipino 20060308 Link

Africa Horn
Somalia's al-Shabab commanders 'killed' in strike
2013-10-29
[BBC.CO.UK] An air strike in southern Somalia has killed two senior commanders of the krazed killer Islamist group, al-Shabaab
... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
, residents have told the BBC.
Also confirmed by NBC News.
The strike destroyed the vehicle the faceless myrmidons were travelling in between the towns of Jilib and Barawe, seen as a major base of al-Shabaab, they said.

The US launched a failed raid in Barawe earlier this month to capture an al-Shabaab commander.

Al-Shabaab is the main al-Qaeda-linked group in East Africa.

A Kenyan military source told the BBC their troops had raided Jilib, and that there might have been some casualties.

However,
there's no worse danger than telling a mother her baby is ugly...
 correspondents say it is unlikely that they carried out the air strike.

Residents of Jilib, some 120km (75 miles) north of the port of Kismayo, told the BBC that it was probably a drone attack that killed the al-Shabaab commanders.

One of those killed was al-Shabaab's top explosives expert, also known as Anta, a member of the group told the News Agency that Dare Not be Named.

"This afternoon, I heard a big crash and saw a drone disappearing far into the sky, at least two faceless myrmidons died," local resident Hassan Nur was quoted by Rooters news agency as saying.

"I witnessed a Suzuki car burning, many al-Shabaab men came to the scene. I could see them carry the remains of two corpses," he said. "It was a heavy missile that the drone dropped. Many cars were driving ahead of me but the drone targeted this Suzuki."
A Hellfire on a Suzuki? That's at least a little over-kill...
At least 67 people were killed last month when al-Shaboobs seized the Westgate shopping centre in Kenya's capital, Nairobi.

US commandos raided Barawe after the attack, but had to retreat after meeting heavy resistance. The US was believed to have sought to capture al-Shabaab commander Abdukadir Mohammed Abdukadir, also known as Ikrima. Barawe residents say Ikrima is an al-Shabaab leader with responsibility for logistics, who is usually accompanied by about 20 well-armed guards.
All in a Suzuki...
The US has carried out a series of air strikes in Somalia. In 2008, one killed al-Shabaab commander Aden Hashi Ayro.

A year later, another strike killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, who was accused of involvement in the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi and the 2002 attacks on a hotel and airline in Mombasa.
Link


Africa Horn
Somalia Says Working with Foreign Partners on Terror 'No Secret'
2013-10-07
[An Nahar] Somalia said Sunday it was "not a secret" it is working with foreign governments to fight terror and described the country's al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab bully boyz as a threat to the world.

Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon was commenting after U.S. commandos launched a raid against Shabaab bully boyz in Somalia, in tandem with a strike against a wanted al-Qaeda leader in Libya.

"Our cooperation with international partners on fighting against the terrorism is not a secret," Farah Shirdon said. "Understand me, that fighting is not a secret. And our interest is to get a peaceful Somalia and free from terrorism and problems."

U.S. forces launched a pre-dawn raid against an unidentified Shabaab leader's home in the southern Somali port of Barawe on Saturday, but failed to capture him.

It was unclear whether he had been killed, but a U.S. official said several-Shabaab
... the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord...
 members had been slain.

The operation was the most significant U.S. assault in Somalia since commandos killed key al-Qaeda operative Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan in the same area four years ago.

It followed an attack by Shabaab gunnies last month on the upscale Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi that left 67 people dead during a bloody four-day siege.

"Al-Shabaab is a threat to us and neighboring countries," Farah Shirdon said. "Al-Shabaab is recognized as a terror group by world countries. Therefore, al-Shabaab is a problem for Somalia, its neighbors and the world."
Link


Africa Horn
Kenya's military spokesman names attackers in Westgate Mall siege
2013-10-06
[Al Ahram] Kenya's military spokesman confirmed the names of the four attackers implicated in the four-day-long siege at the Westgate Mall, which killed more than 60 people last month.

Major Emmanuel Chirchir confirmed that the attackers are Abu Baara al-Sudani, Omar Nabhan, Khattab al-Kene and 'Umayr.'
So we've got a Sudanite and a Kenyan and two of unknown origin.
He told The Associated Press: "I confirm those are the names of the terrorists."

Little is known about their identity.

Matt Bryden, the former head of the United Nations Monitoring Group on Somalia, said via email that al-Kene and Umayr are known members of al-Hijra, a Kenyan extremist group affiliated with Al-Shabab. He added that Nabhan may be a relative of Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, who was the most-wanted al-Qaida operative in the region until he was killed in a 2009 strike led by Navy Seals.
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Africa Horn
What Are Those Warships Doing Off Somalia?
2009-11-19
Pirate-fightin' navies find that parking off the Horn of Africa provides cover for counterterrorism and protects scofflaw fishermen.

Navies are expensive, and sending warships to Somalia is a hugely inefficient way to fight pirates, considering that the number of successful attacks off the Somali coast this year -- 35 by mid-November -- is only seven below the total for all of 2008, before NATO and the EU had anti-pirate missions in the region.

So why are they there? The short answer is that Western governments don't know what else to do. But the U.S. and Europe also have different self-interested reasons to cruise the Indian Ocean.

For most of the European governments involved, the obvious idea is to protect their domestic shipping business. "For these big shipping nations, it's not a big deal," a Horn of Africa expert named E.J. Hogendoorn, at the International Crisis Group in Nairobi, told me in September. "They've got big shiny navies; what the hell are they gonna do with 'em anyway? Might as well park 'em off the coast of Somalia. It's as good a training as any."

And defending the sea lanes is more or less what everyone's claiming to do. But America's interest is more complicated. In spite of the dramatic rescue of the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama last April, the ocean isn't terribly crowded with American merchant vessels. (Even American shipping lines sail under foreign flags, to save money.) The real draw to this part of the world, for Washington, is counterterrorism.

The Navy won't say so. "Piracy's an international problem requiring an international solution," said Lt. Matt Allen, a spokesman for the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, where the separate U.S.-led counterpiracy coalition (Combined Task Force 151) is based. "Even though a small portion of the [merchant] vessels are U.S.-flagged, a majority are allies and friends. Every nation has a vested interest in insuring the safe passage of the sea lanes."

But Washington's military buildup on the Horn of Africa started with the war in Afghanistan, which led to a (still-growing) naval base in Djibouti, just north of Somalia. Officially, the base in Djibouti has nothing to do with pirates. It's lodged inside what the Pentagon calls an "Arc of Instability" stretching from Kenya to Yemen. Al-qaeda and some like-minded groups have civil wars running in Yemen, Somalia and Sudan -- and Somalia, of course, could become "the next Afghanistan" if Islamists like al-Shabaab take over. Washington wants to watch these developments.

In September, a small American team killed a long-wanted terrorist named Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan south of Mogadishu, which suggests that the Pentagon has good intelligence in the region. No one in Djibouti, Bahrain or the AFRICOM headquarters in Germany will admit to organizing the raid, but Special Forces from an American warship reportedly helped, which might indicate a measure of support from the Navy's counterpiracy base in Bahrain (since the Djibouti base doesn't send out warships, officially).

The Navy's new jet-sized surveillance drones based in the Seychelles -- officially to watch pirates -- also have more than enough range to glide over Somalia and the rest of the Pentagon's "Arc of Instability."

But there's a third interest at stake in the fish-rich Indian Ocean. Some European fishing boats wander down from the Mediterranean (and away from hated EU regulations) to trawl the lawless coast of Somalia for tuna, lobster, shrimp and shark.

"It is particularly ironic that many of the nations that are presently contributing warships to the anti-piracy flotillas patrolling, or set to patrol, the waters off the Horn of Africa, are themselves directly linked to the foreign fishing vessels that are busily plundering Somalia's offshore resources," Clive Schofield, an Australian research fellow at the University of Wollongong and author of a paper called Plundered Waters: Somalia's Maritime Resource Insecurity, has written.

Namely: France and Spain. Hogendoorn, at the International Crisis Group, singled out Spain. "I've spoken to diplomats in Europe who've made it quite clear that Spain has been very active in the piracy issue because of its own national interests," he said, "which can only be interpreted to mean that they have fishing vessels making lots of money off of fishing in Somali waters."

Decimation of Somali fishing is a major complaint of the pirates themselves. The notion of a Somali fisherman hijacking a cargo ship because of collapsing fish populations is over-simple -- piracy is organized crime -- but the complaints about systematic decimation of African fish is real. Many Somalis, in fact, think the warships they see from their beaches have arrived to make the seas safe for foreign boats.

Aboard a NATO frigate in September, a British officer, Lt. Cmdr. Graham Bennett, noticed the lack of fishermen out on a calm, sunny day. It was the start of fishing season in the Gulf of Aden -- the monsoons had just ended -- but Somali fishermen seemed to be staying home.

"We need to get the word out that we're not here to arrest everyone," he told me. "We got on Somali TV the other day [and] said we really do want to protect the fishermen themselves from piracy. But some of the Somali people thought we were just here to protect the European fishing trawlers. That surprised us a little."
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Africa Horn
Did SF capture Somali Al-Qaeda leaders in last week's raid?
2009-09-24
Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera has some interesting news on the covert raid conducted by US Special Forces, dubbed Celestial Balance, that targeted an al Qaeda leader in Southern Somalia on Sept. 14th. According to a local stringer for the newspaper, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan was not killed but captured alive. Along with Nabhan, American commandos apprehended Abu Mansur al Amriki, the American convert to Islam who has become a commander in charge of military training for Shabaab.
Good Gawd! I certainly hope they don't put ladies' underwear on their heads! That would be tragic.
Link


Africa Subsaharan
'Al-Qaeda threat' closed US embassy in S.Africa
2009-09-24
An Al-Qaeda splinter group threatened to attack the US embassy in Pretoria, prompting the United States to close its diplomatic posts in South Africa, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

The group phoned the embassy on Monday and threatened to attack US government buildings in South Africa, including the embassy and aid offices, The Star newspaper said, citing "well-placed security sources".

The report did not identify the group, but said the threat was apparently prompted by the killing of a top regional Al-Qaeda leader in Somalia during a lightning US military operation last week.

Somalia's hardline Shebab Islamist group has vowed to avenge the killing of Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a Kenyan citizen wanted by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation over anti-Israeli attacks in Mombasa in 2002.
What? No mention of the 200 Africans, almost all female students, killed and 5000 wounded in Kenya and Tanzania?
Link


Africa Horn
Mother demands to see Nabhans body
2009-09-17
[Al Jizz] The mother of a suspected al-Qaeda operative assassinated in Somalia has asked for his body.
Fred! We need another two-pound coffee can!
Aisha Abdallah demanded to see the body of Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, who is believed to have been killed in a US commando raid earlier in the week.

Abdallah told The Associated Press news agency on Wednesday that she wants to see the body of her son before it is buried. "My son has never been a terrorist," she said.

Nabhan, a 30-year-old Kenyan, was wanted for the 2002 car bombing of a beach resort in Kenya and a failed attempt to shoot down an Israeli aircraft.

Three senior US officials familiar with Monday's helicopter raid said that Nabhan was killed in the strike along with six other people.

Nabhan had been fighting with the opposition al-Shabab group against the Somali government when he was killed. The Somalia-based group vowed to avenge Nabhan's death and said it would keep on fighting.
"We shall have Dire RevengeĀ™!"
"God foiled the endeavor of our stupid enemy who imagined that the flame of jihad in the Muslim lands ... will be extinguished with the killing of the mujahidin leaders," read a statement from the group posted on the internet.

Another unnamed US official said the attack was launched by forces from multiple US military branches and included Navy Seals, at least two army assault helicopters and the involvement of two US warships in the region for months. The US has not provided official details on the raid or on the number of people killed or where the bodies were taken.
Link


Africa Horn
Somalia militant group admits death of commander
2009-09-17
[Khaleej Times] Somalia's Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab extremist group has acknowledged that one of its commanders was killed in a US military raid. The Shebab group "acknowledged the death of one of its commanders... and a group of its fighters in a communique issued on jihadist forums," SITE Intelligence Group said on Tuesday.

US officials confirmed the raid on Monday, and said that Shebab commander Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan had been killed in the operation. Nabhan is a Kenyan citizen wanted by the FBI over the 2002 anti-Israeli attacks in Mombasa.
Israelis killed in Mombasa? How does the FBI have an interest?
The Shebab posted a statement on the Global Islamic Media Front website indicating "that six helicopters initially participated in the attack and fired 'heavily and in a focused manner' on a car driven by the fighters," according to SITE.
"The big meanies are picking on us!"
"They said that two of the helicopters landed and then these fighters responded to them in an hour-long clash, but were overwhelmed by the four other helicopters."
"We coulda taken them, but the meanies cheated."
Earlier Tuesday, a top Shebab commander told AFP that the group would "retaliate against this unprovoked attack." "The United States is Islam's known enemy and we will never expect mercy from them, nor should they expect mercy from us," a member of the extremist group said.
Whatcha gonna do, Mr. Al Shababer-man? Seduce more of our jihadi-minded sons to send to their deaths?
"We are investigating the matter and if any Somali is found to have aided the attackers, then he or she shall face Allah's verdict," he said on condition of anonymity.

The governor of the Lower Shabelle region where the raid occurred said three civilians were killed during the operation, details of which remain murky.

ABC News reported that at least one US helicopter was involved in the raid, along with support from a US Navy ship offshore that was on hand to monitor the situation and provide assistance if needed. Nabhan's body was taken into US custody, added ABC, a US television network.
Link


Africa Horn
Somali Group Lauds U.S. Killing of Al Qaeda Suspect
2009-09-16
[Asharq al-Aswat] A Somali militia opposed to Islamist insurgents al Shabaab praised a U.S. commando raid that killed one of the region's most wanted al Qaeda suspects and called for more strikes to wipe out foreign jihadists.

U.S. special forces in helicopters struck a car in rebel-held southern Somalia on Monday, killing the Kenyan said to have built the truck bomb that claimed 15 lives at an Israeli-owned beach hotel on the Kenyan coast in 2002.

"We are very pleased with the helicopters that killed the foreign al Shabaab fighters," Sheikh Abdullahi Sheikh Abu Yussuf, the Ahlu Sunna spokesman, told Reuters late on Monday.

"God sent birds against those who attacked the Holy Mosque, the Ka'ba, millennia ago. The same way, God has sent bombers against al Shabaab. We hope more aircraft will destroy the rest of al Shabaab, who have abused Islam and massacred Somalis."

Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, 28, was also accused of involvement in a simultaneous, but botched, missile attack on a Israeli airliner full of tourists as it took off from nearby Mombasa.

A senior Somali government source said he was killed along with four other foreign members of the al Shabaab insurgent group, which Washington says is al Qaeda's proxy in Somalia.

Western security agencies say the failed Horn of Africa state has become a safe haven for militants, including foreign jihadists, who use it to plot attacks in the region and beyond.

Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca has fought al Shabaab for months across Somalia's central and southern regions and is allied with the U.N.-backed government of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, whose administration controls parts of the central region and some of Mogadishu.

Nahban was killed near Roobow village in Barawe District, some 250 km (150 miles) south of the capital. U.S. sources familiar with the operation, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States believed his body was in U.S. custody.

A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment "on any alleged operation in Somalia". The U.S. military has launched airstrikes inside Somalia in the past against individuals blamed for the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1988.

In May last year, U.S. warplanes killed the then-leader of al Shabaab and al Qaeda's top man in the country, Afghan-trained Aden Hashi Ayro, in an attack on the central town of Dusamareb.

Violence has killed more than 18,000 Somalis since the start of 2007 and driven another 1.5 million from their homes.

That has triggered one of the world's worst aid emergencies, with the number of people needing help leaping 17.5 percent in a year to 3.76 million, or half the population.
Link


Africa Horn
Red on Red in Somalia
2009-01-16
Shabaab and rival Islamist group clash in central Somalia

By Bill Roggio

Two commanders of the al Qaeda-backed As Shabaab were killed during heavy fighting with a government-supported Islamist militia in central Somalia. Shabaab leaders Mohamed Mohamed Salad and Mohamed Yusuf Nur were "martyred" in the town of Guriel during clashes with the pro-government Ahlu Sunna Waljamaa, Shabaab spokesman Sheikh Mukhtar Robow Abu Mansour told the media. More than 30 Somalis were killed and more than 50 were wounded during the latest round of fighting in the contested central Somali town.

The fighting between Shabaab and Ahlu Sunna began in late December after Ahlu Sunna attacked Shabaab in three towns in the central Somali province of Galgadud. Forty Somalis were killed during three days of fighting that resulted in the ouster of Shabaab forces from the town of Guriel.

Shabaab, or the Somali Youth Movement, has gained considerable ground in southern and central Somalia after heavy fighting during 2008. More than 16,000 Somalis were killed last year. Late last summer, Kismayo, Somalia's second largest city, fell to Shabaab. The fighting left the powerless Transitional Federal Government in control over the town of Baidoa and in small pockets in the capital of Mogadishu.

Shabaab was formed shortly after the Ethiopians invaded Somalia and ejected the Islamic Courts Union from power in late 2006. Many of Shabaab's senior leaders trained in al Qaeda camps and are considered al Qaeda leaders. Senior Shabaab leader Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan is wanted by the U.S. Government for his involvement in the 1998 African embassy attacks and 2002 Mombasa attacks. In September 2008 Nabhan formally reached out to al Qaeda's central leadership to formally join the group.

The fighting between Shabaab and Ahlu Sunna is taking place as the Ethiopian Army is withdrawing from the capital of Mogadishu and other Somali regions. Six of Ethiopia's 14 bases in Mogadishu have been vacated.

Islamist militias allied with the Ethiopian faction of the Alliance for Re-libration of Somalia (ARS), led by al Qaeda leader Hassan Dahir Aweys, the former chief of the Islamic Courts, have taken control of the Ethiopian bases. Forces under the command of Sheikh Yusuf Indha'adde, the former defense minister of the Islamic Courts, have also attacked Ethiopian forces as they withdrew from Mogadishu.

The Eritrean faction of the ARS opposes the Djibouti peace accords, an agreement that calls for power-sharing between the Islamist militias and the government, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, the director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy's Center for Terrorism Research told The Long War Journal.

Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, the former political leader of the Islamic Courts, leads what is called the Djibouti faction of the ARS. Sharif and Aweys have publicly clashed over their disagreement over the peace talks. Aweys claimed he took control of the ARS in July. In August, Aweys said his forces would attack UN peacekeepers and Ethiopian forces would be "expelled from the country."

Shabaab has also vowed to attack the remaining 3,000 African Union peacekeepers as well as target Ethiopian forces as they leave the country. "We will strike AMISOM (African Union Mission to Somalia) bases like the airport and K4," Abu Mansour said today.
Link


Africa Horn
Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan Targeted in Somalia Airstrike
2008-03-04
U.S. forces found, targeted and killed in a Somali desert city the senior al Qaeda operative who masterminded the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa and had since spent a decade in hiding, The Washington Times has learned.

Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, who is one of the FBI's most-wanted terrorists, was the target of a U.S. missile strike on a residence in Dobley, a small town in southern Somalia near the Kenyan border, according to a U.S. military official who spoke to The Times on the condition of anonymity because of the nature of the operation. "Al Qaeda has used this region to spill over into other parts of eastern Africa," said a U.S. counterterrorism official, also on the condition of anonymity. "Somalia at a minimum is a place of refuge but for some of al Qaeda it is a place to plot and plan future attacks."

The truck bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which came just nine minutes apart, killed 12 American diplomats and more than 200 Africans, and also injured 5,000 people.

National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe, who did not reveal details regarding the operation or name its target, told reporters that "the action was to go after al Qaeda and al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists," alluding that more than one person may have been killed in the attack. "They are plotting and planning all over the world to destabilize the world, to inflict terror, and where we find them, we are going to go after them," he said.

The 34-year-old Nabhan and other al Qaeda members are thought to have been killed in the attack, according to sources who spoke to The Times. Several U.S. military officials told The Times that the attack was carried out by Tomahawk cruise missiles, although most were unsure of whether the missile was fired from a submarine or a surface ship.
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Africa Horn
US preparing air-strikes against Al-Qaeda in Somalia: official
2007-06-12
Wimmen and minorities hit hardest.
US warplanes are overflying the northern Somali region of Puntland in preparation for air-strikes against suspected Al-Qaeda fugitives, more than a week after US warships shelled the area, officials said Tuesday.

The semi-autonomous regional government had authorised the overflights to pursue Al-Qaeda members believed to be hiding in the moutainous area, Puntland's security minister Ibrahim Artan Ismail told reporters. "We know that American warplanes are overflying Puntland territory. This air surveillance is part of an agreement reached between Puntland authorities and the Americans," Islamil told a news conference in northern Somali town of Bosasso. "The warplanes are looking for Al-Qaeda hideouts and when they get them, they will bomb them," he said, adding that the air operation covers areas where intelligence shows Al-Qaeda elements are hiding.

Residents told Somali media that US planes have been overfying the area. Ismail asked residents of the inland mountanious areas and the hilly shoreline "not to worry about planes flying over them."

A US navy destroyer shelled the coast on June 2, killing at least 12 Islamist fighters, including foreigners, who were believed to be allied to extremist groups, Puntland officials said. CNN reported that the destroyer was targeting a suspected Al-Qaeda operative believed to have been involved in the 1998 attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people.

Among the so-called "high value" Al-Qaeda militants believed to be in Somalia are Fazul Abdullah Mohammed from the Comoros, Kenyan Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan and Sudanese national Abu Taha al-Sudani, an arms expert believed to be close to Osama bin Laden. Others are Sheikh Dahir Aweys, the hardline cleric heading Somalia's Islamic Courts Union, and Adan Hashi Ayro, the commander of the Islamists' militia wing, the Shabaab.

A US force is based in Djibouti and patrols the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden as part of the US-led "war on terror".
Scare quotes courtey of the Afp.
US intelligence says Al-Qaeda has stepped up operations in Somalia.
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