“Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Al Qaeda’s leader in East Africa and the mastermind of the American Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, was killed in a late-night shootout at a security checkpoint in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, Somali and American officials said Saturday [June 11, 2011]. …’Fazul’s death is a significant blow to Al Qaeda, its extremist allies and its operations in East Africa,’ Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said. …Mr. Mohammed, who was one of the most wanted men in Africa and had a $5 million bounty on his head from the United States government, and another militant mistakenly drove up to a checkpoint run by Somali government soldiers late on Tuesday night. The Somali soldiers fired on their truck…and the men fired back, Somali officials said. Seconds later, Mr. Mohammed and the other militant were dead. …’This was lucky,’ a Somali security official said Saturday night. ‘It wasn’t like Fazul was killed during an operation to get him. He was essentially driving around Mogadishu and got lost.’ ”
– Jeffrey Gettleman, “Somalis Kill Man Behind Bombings Of U.S. Embassies,” The New York Times, June 11, 2011