Al-Qaeda figure killed in US raid in Somalia

US special forces in helicopters have killed one of east Africa's most wanted al-Qaeda militants in an attack in Somalia.

28-year-old Kenyan-born Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan was suspected of building the truck bomb that killed 15 people at a Kenyan hotel in 2002, as well as involvement in a simultaneous, but botched, missile launch at an Israeli airliner leaving Mombasa airport.

Somali and US sources said the fugitive was in a car with other foreign insurgents from the al-Shabaab rebel group when they were hit near Roobow village in Barawe District, some 250km south of the capital Mogadishu.

The US described al-Shabaab as al-Qaeda's proxy in Somalia.

A US official in Washington confirmed that US Special Operations Forces aboard two helicopters opened fired on the vehicle that they believed contained Mr Nabhan.

The troops took the body into custody, the official said, and were confident it was that of Mr Nabhan.

The official said a total of four Somalis were killed while a Somali government source said that Mr Nabhan and four others died.

Mr Nabhan is believed to have fled to Somalia after the 2002 bombing of an Israeli-owned Kenyan beach hotel.

Somalia's hardline Shebab Islamist group has vowed to avenge the killing.

'Muslims will retaliate against this unprovoked attack,' a top Shebab leader said. 'The United States is Islam's known enemy and we will never expect mercy from them, nor should they expect mercy from us.'