AP: "al-Qaida Chief in Somalia May Be Dead"

al-Qaida Chief in Somalia May Be Dead
Jan 10, 8:45 AM (ET)
By SALAD DUHUL

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - A senior al-Qaida suspect wanted for bombing American embassies in East Africa was killed in a U.S. airstrike, a Somali official said Wednesday, a report that if confirmed would mean the end of an eight-year hunt for a top target of Washington's war on terrorism.

There was no immediate confirmation from the United States. In Washington, an intelligence official said the U.S. killed five to 10 people in an attack on an al-Qaida target in southern Somalia but did not say who was killed. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the operation's sensitivity, said perhaps four or five others were wounded.

The report came as U.S forces apparently launched a third day of airstrikes in southern Somalia. Witnesses said an AC-130 gunship attacked a suspected al-Qaida training camp. At least four separate strikes were reported Wednesday around Ras Kamboni, on the Somali coast and a few miles from the Kenyan border.

"US takes hunt for Al Qaeda to Somalia"

After 8 plus years, justice comes to Al Qaeda killers in Africa.

US takes hunt for Al Qaeda to Somalia
By Scott Baldauf and Mike Pflanz

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA; AND NAIROBI, KENYA – On the heels of US air strikes Monday, US helicopter gunships strafed villages in Somalia Tuesday in an ongoing hunt for Al Qaeda operatives in the Horn of Africa.

US military officials say that Somalia's lawless state had become a safe haven for Al Qaeda activists, including possibly those responsible for the embassy bomb attacks in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam in 1998.

This week's attacks illustrate how much US military policy has changed since Sept. 11, 2001. As the US closes or downsizes massive cold war-era bases in Germany and South Korea, its presence is expanding in Uganda, Djibouti, Senegal, and São Tomé and Príncipe, African nations once seen as far beyond American interests. Today, African bases serve both as "jumping off" points for the war in Iraq and also as bulwarks against new threats in volatile regions of Africa.

The rest of the article can be found here.

How famous tyrants met their ends...

Watching the video of Saddam's execution, I was struck with the idea of who other famous tyrants have met their ends:

Joseph Stalin: died of a stroke, March 5, 1953.

Mao Zedong: died of natural causes, September 9, 1976.

Adolph Hitler: committed suicide, April 30, 1945.

Benito Mussolini: executed by Italian partisans, April 28, 1945.

Pol Pot: died of natural causes, April 15, 1998.

Nicolae Ceausescu: executed by firing squad, December 25, 1989.

Idi Amin: died of natural causes, August 16, 2003.