Slain Somali al Qaida leader trained jihadis from Minnesota

Salah Ali Nabhan, the al Qaida leader recently killed by US commandos in Somalia, was widely believed to be involved in the 1998 US embassy bombing in Kenya was also connected to the Minnesota jihadis. According to the Minnesota jiahdis in custody, Nabhan was one of their trainers in Somalia. Nabhan was an expert in making car bombs, especially ones used for suicide attacks. NPR

Earlier this week, U.S. Special Forces killed a man U.S. intelligence said was the link between an Islamic militia in Somalia and al-Qaida in Pakistan. But he also had a connection to the U.S. that has not been reported: He was a senior instructor for new al-Shabab recruits, including a handful of young Somali-Americans from Minneapolis.[...]

Intelligence officials tell NPR that when agents flipped to a picture of one al-Qaida operative, several of the young men said they recognized him.

His name was Salah Ali Nabhan. He's the man American commandos killed in a daylight raid in southern Somalia on Monday.

The Minneapolis boys said they recognized him because he had been one of their trainers in the camps in Somalia — on loan from al-Qaida to boost the training operations of a Somali militia called al-Shabab.[...]

[Y]oung Minnesotan, Shirwa Ahmed, drove a car bomb into a government compound in northern Somalia last November. He and Nabhan were in the training camps at the same time.