One of two people killed when troops fired from helicopters at a car in Somalia on Monday is believed to be Kenya-born Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a terrorist wanted by the FBI for the 2002 hotel bombing and simultaneous, but botched, missile attack on an Israeli airliner leaving Kenya’s Mombasa airport, witnesses and a Somali government source told Reuters.

Several sources told the ABC News television network that the raid was carried out by American forces. An American official reportedly said that a US Navy ship was also nearby to monitor the situation and provide assistance if needed.

Ali Nabhan’s death has not yet been officially confirmed, but sources told ABC that his body is now in US custody.

A senior Somali government source told Reuters the fugitive had been in a car with other senior Islamist gunmen when they were attacked near a village in Barawe District, 250 km south of the capital Mogadishu.

“Nabhan and four other top foreign commanders of militant groups were killed in the raid,” the source was quoted as saying.

In November 2002, three suicide bombers rammed their car into the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel in Mombasa, killing Noy and Dvir Anter, 12 and 13, Albert DeHaville, 60, and nine others, and wounding 80.

At about the same time, terrorists fired at least two missiles at an Arkia airliner carrying 261 passengers as it took off from Mombasa’s airport for Israel. The missiles narrowly missed, and the plane landed safely at Ben-Gurion Airport approximately five hours later.

“These young fighters do not have the same skills as their colleagues in Afghanistan or elsewhere when it comes to foreign airstrikes,” the government source reportedly added. “They are in confusion now. I hope the world takes action.”

According to the report, residents of the Somali town where the attack took place said foreign soldiers in four helicopters fired from the air and hit a car, killing two people and taking two wounded men with them.

A local man at the scene said foreign commandos who carried out the raid were wearing French flags on the shoulders of their uniforms, but a spokesman for the French Defense Ministry, Christophe Prazuck, denied any French soldiers were involved.

“We don’t have any military presence in that region … there are no forces in that territory,” Prazuck told Reuters in Paris.

A Channel 10 analyst, identifying Nabhan as an al Qaida operative, said there was “someone systematically hunting down al Qaida men” around the world.

In 2002, a previously unknown terrorist group, ‘The Army of Palestine,’ issued a statement in Beirut claiming responsibility. However, the complexity of the attacks cast suspicion on Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network, which bombed two US embassies in east Africa killing 231 people.

AP contributed to this report

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