| Abu Talha al-Sudani ابو طلحة السوداني | |||||||
| Birth Place: | Sudan | ||||||
| Death Date: | November 2007 | ||||||
| Death Place: | Kamboni, Somalia | ||||||
| Known For: | Chief operative for Al-Qaeda in East Africa | ||||||
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Abu Talha al-Sudani (Arabic: ابو طلحة السوداني) also known as Tariq Abdullah, was a Sudanese member of Al Qaeda terrorist organization, an explosives expert and a close aide of Osama bin Laden.[1]
He is believed to have traveled to Southern Lebanon along with Saif al-Adel, Saif al-Islam al-Masri, Abu Ja`far al-Masri and Abu Salim al-Masri, where he trained alongside Hezbollah.[2]
A Sudanese national married to a Somali woman, al-Sudani had lived in Somalia since 1993. He was more recently identified as a close associate of Gouled Hassan Dourad, leader of a Mogadishu-based network that worked in support of Al Qaeda. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence revealed that al-Sudani had been involved with a plot to target the U.S. military base in Djibouti (see CJTF-HOA).
Al-Sudani was also believed to be the financier of the 1998 United States embassy bombings.[3]
In December 2006, the TFG ministers publicly claimed al-Sudani led a group of ICU fighters in Idaale as part of the War in Somalia, a claim which observers were widely skeptical of.[4] A month later he was the target of a U.S. Air Force AC-130 airstrike that allegedly killed an undetermined number (up to 70) of civilian nomadic tribesmen (denied by a US official), but not al-Sudani.[5] [6]
According to a Pentagon official, al-Sudani was killed by Ethiopian forces in late November 2007 in the Badhadhe District. However, the U.S. government never officially confirmed his death.[7] On September 2, 2008, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan confirmed the death of Abu Talha al-Sudani, referring to him as a "martyr".[8]