In Somalia, the radical Islamist al-Shabaab group has sworn to avenge the killing of an al-Qaeda leader by United States commandos.

The group was responding to news reports that Kenyan-born Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan was killed in a US operation using helicopters co-ordinated from a US naval vessel off the Somali coast.

The 28-year-old al-Qaeda militant is believed to have been behind an attack on Israeli tourists in Mombasa in Kenya in 2002 in which 15 people died. He was on an FBI list of most wanted terrorists.

The US commando operation took place in an area of Somalia which is controlled by the al-Shabaab group. A spokesman for the group has refused to say whether other militants were killed in the US attack.

photo: Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan (Wikipedia)