US targets mall attack mastermind

The Somali Islamist leader who ordered last year's Westgate shopping mall massacre in Kenya is believed to have been killed in a US drone strike.

Ahmed Abde Godane, the leader of the al-Shabab militant group, is thought to have been targeted by a salvo of missiles as he left a meeting of the group's senior leaders on Monday night.

The US military said it was still trying to verify whether the 37-year-old died in the attack, but witnesses spoke of a sound like an "earthquake" as missiles hit in Somalia's Sablale forest district, 160km south of Mogadishu.

Godane, one of al-Shabab's most feared figures, gave his personal backing to last September's Westgate atrocity in which 67 people were killed when Islamist gunmen armed with grenades and assault rifles attacked a shopping mall in Nairobi.

Yesterday al-Shabab officials declined to confirm whether Godane had been killed. "Let the Americans say they have killed Shabab's leader. So far the Americans just gave us rumours," a senior al-Shabab official told AFP.

Another spokesman, Abu Mohammed, said Godane was in one of two vehicles hit in the attack, which he said killed six militants, but declined to say if Godane was one of them.

The strike came as al-Shabab forces were on the back foot from a government offensive aimed at seizing key ports under militant control.