Reports reaching here on Wednesday indicated that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed was among dozens of people killed in air strikes launched by U.S. forces in southern Somalia early this week.

The 32-year-old Mohammed allegedly planned the attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania which killed more than 200 people. He is also believed to have planned the 2002 Paradise Hotel bombing in Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa.

Mohammed, one of FBI's most wanted terrorists who has evaded capture for eight years, was allegedly harbored by a Somali Islamic movement that was ousted late last month by the Ethiopia-backed Somali transitional government.

Washington has long said al-Qaeda suspects linked to the embassy bombings in East Africa took refuge in Somalia. It also accuses members of the Somali Islamic movement, Supreme Council of Islamic Courts (SCIC), of having links to al-Qaeda.

Mohammed joined al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and was trained therewith Osama bin Laden, the terror network's leader, according to the transcript of an FBI interrogation of a known associate.

The U.S. air strikes are underway as the transitional government has called for all clan militia to assemble at designated points across the country to disarm, retrain and join the national army.