May 1 (Reuters) - Below are key facts about Aden Hashi Ayro, thought to have been al Qaeda's top leader in Somalia, who was killed in a U.S. air strike on Thursday. * Ayro headed the Shabaab, the feared military wing of the Somali Islamist administration ousted from power in 2006 which had been waging an insurgency against government forces. * Trained in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, Ayro came to attention when he was linked to the murders of four aid workers in Somaliland and more than a dozen Somalis with Western ties. * The United States accused him of links to al Qaeda, through his mentor Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who led the former Islamist administration. Aweys always denied ties to al Qaeda. * Ayro drew international condemnation for digging up a colonial-era Italian cemetery in Mogadishu in January 2005. He built a mosque there and intelligence experts said he also had a training camp for militants there. * Security experts and diplomats say Ayro's help to al Qaeda includes providing safe haven, weapons and housing to its members. * Among those he is said to have assisted is Abu Talha al-Sudani, a Sudanese national thought to be al Qaeda's east African chief and accused by Washington of directing an attack on an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya in 2002. * U.S. military officials say they believe Ayro was wounded in an air strike in January 2007. For main story click [nWAL127326] (Writing and reporting by Bryson Hull in Nairobi; Editing by Daniel Wallis) ((nairobi.newsroom@reuters.com ; +254 20 22 4717))
Amadeo Alvarez (C), skipper of Spanish tuna boat Playa de Bakio, arrives at the airport of Vigo April 30, 2008. Thirteen Spanish seamen who were taken hostage in the Indian Ocean ...
