Wednesday, June 15, 2011
“They are the elders,” said the driver, referring to the car’s occupants with an honorific name for top leaders of al-Shabab, Somalia’s most dangerous militant group
“I don’t know the elders,” Hassan said he responded, letting the driver know he wouldn’t be simply waved through the checkpoint.
And thus a routine stop at a checkpoint in Somalia’s capital turned into a shootout resulting in the death of Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of attacks on two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed 224 people. It was described in an exclusive interview on Monday with The Associated Press by Hassan, marking the first time details have emerged of a killing that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called a “significant blow to al-Qaida, its extremist allies, and its operations in East Africa.”
The account given to AP by the young soldier was corroborated by Mogadishu’s deputy mayor for security based on reports of police who were with Hassan at the time. The events as described by Hassan show that while the killing of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden was the result of meticulous gathering of intelligence and planning, Mohammed seems to have died because he had the bad luck of running into a government checkpoint manned by a determined soldier.
The driver complied with Hassan’s order and turned on the interior light. Hassan said he looked in and saw a pistol tucked in the driver’s waistband and an AK-47 assault rifle on the lap of the man beside him. That man, authorities later determined after he was already buried, was Mohammed, the mastermind of U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania almost 13 years ago and the most wanted man in East Africa.
“Don’t move your gun,” shouted Hassan, pointing his weapon at the man with the assault rifle. The passenger shouted as the driver drew his pistol to fire at Hassan, the soldier recalled. But the pistol jammed, and Hassan said he fired 30 bullets, a full magazine from his AK-47, into the Toyota Hilux Surf. Both Mohammed and the driver shot back, Hassan said, filling the air with gunfire. When the shooting stopped the two men in the Toyota were dead.
When the driver referred to “the elders” in the vehicle, that indicated he had at least two passengers. After the shootout, Hassan said he noticed that one of the SUV’s back doors was open, leading to speculation that at least one other occupant may have escaped.
Mohammed, a native of the Comoros Islands, had been on the run for more than a decade with a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head. Hassan said he doesn’t want to spend much time wondering whether he will get that reward, which is not typically given to law enforcement agents acting in the line of duty. The U.S. does not comment on the status of reward offers.
“I’m happy that I killed the troublemaker. Somalis’ prayers and blessings are enough,” Hassan told AP in a telephone interview. “He has caused a lot of trouble in the country.”