Al Qaeda suspect in Kenya bombing killed-minister

ISLAMABAD, Apr 13 (Reuters) An Egyptian al Qaeda member wanted for his role in the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Kenya was killed by Pakistani forces close to the Afghan border, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said today.

The minister named the man as Abdul Rehman, one of the aliases used by Muhsin Musa Matwalli Atwah, for whom the United States has offered a 5 million dollar reward.

''He was involved in the Kenya bombing,'' Ahmed said.

Military sources said the al Qaeda guerrilla was killed along with six other Islamist militants in a missile attack by Pakistani Cobra helicopters on their hideout in North Waziristan tribal region just before midnight yesterday.

Truck bombs exploded at US embassies in the Kenyan capital Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on August 7, 1998, killing 224, including 12 Americans, and injuring thousands. All but 10 of the deaths are in Nairobi, where the damage was the worst.

Four men accused of al Qaeda links were sentenced in October 2001 to life imprisonment by a US court for the embassy bombings.

Atwah was indicted by a federal grand jury in New York in December 2000 for conspiracy in the bombings and was previously thought to be in Afghanistan.

REUTERS DKS HS2203