Somalia's president said his security forces will defeat al Qaeda and its affiliate militants in the war-ravaged country after they killed Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Africa's most wanted al Qaeda operative, this week, according to Reuters. "We have overpowered al Qaeda and al Shabaab in Somalia, they are weak and now melting away," said President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, whose Horn of Africa country has been without effective central government since 1991. "(Mohammed's) death is a major setback to al Shabaab and al Qaeda... He was a great burden to our government and to the neighbouring countries," Ahmed told reporters. Mohammed reputedly ran al Qaeda in east Africa from his base in southern Somalia, where he hid for more than a decade after being accused of playing a lead role in 1998 U.S. embassy attacks in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, which killed 240 people. -- SPA
