Al-Qaeda's longest-serving and most senior operative in East Africa has been confirmed dead in Somalia, adding to the leadership vacuum in the global terror organization since the killing of Osama bin Laden last month. The death in Mogadishu of Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, the mastermind of the 1998 bombings of U.S. Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, is a major disruption of Al Qaeda's efforts to expand its hold on havens in the Horn of Africa, U.S. officials and counter-terrorism experts said Saturday.
No leader of Al Qaeda has emerged since Navy SEALs shot and killed the world's most-wanted terrorist. Ayman Zawahiri, long reputed to be Bin Laden's chief deputy, released a video last week condemning Bin Laden's slaying, but he did not make a clear announcement about taking control of the group.
"It's been a bad spring for Al Qaeda," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer and currently a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy, a Washington-based think tank.
Senior members of the Obama administration, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and White House counter-terrorism chief John Brennan, were quick to trumpet the killing of one of Al Qaeda's most important — if lesser-known — operatives in what seemed to be an attempt to reclaim some of the public accolades the White House received in the days after the Bin Laden killing.
President Obama's approval ratings softened in recent weeks on economic news, down from the highs after the death of Bin Laden, polls have shown.
Mohammed, an East African by birth, was crucial in bringing such groups as the extremist Shabab in Somalia into the Al Qaeda fold, as well as attracting militant movements from other parts of Africa.
He also was a key link between militants in Africa and Al Qaeda's most dangerous affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen, immediately across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia.
