FBI agents and Kenyan detectives were mingling with the tourists, desperately searching for Fazul Abdullah Mohammed after he was spotted back in the country and preparing to strike.

He is only too familar with the resort, having spent three months there last winter planning the simultaneous attacks on the Paradise Hotel and a missile strike on an Israeli charter flight.

An FBI agent noted Mohammed’s preference for baseball caps and designer jeans and said: “He is truly one of our most wanted.” The Bureau already had a £25 million bounty on Mohammed, whom they have indicted for masterminding the synchronised lorry bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

This tall, languid computer expert, who is said to have used more than 20 aliases, is believed to have left Kenya in 1998 even as the fires in the Embassy were still burning.

Like many in al-Qaeda’s high command, who talk of wanting to die as martyrs for their cause, Mohammed has always been careful to plan his escape route in advance. He headed first for his homeland, the Comoros Islands, and as FBI agents were trying to trace him there, he calmly walked on to a plane bound for Dubai.

Since then he has moved easily around the Horn of Africa and neighbouring countries such as Kenya, where al-Qaeda has been recruiting followers for a decade.

An Islamic cleric introduced Mohammed to his family early last year and took him to their home in Siyu, a remote town on an island near the border with Somalia. There Mohammed is said to have taught in an Islamic school and married the cleric’s teenage daughter just weeks after the attacks took place in Mombasa. The cleric says that Mohammed and his daughter disappeared in January.

His file in the FBI headquarters notes that he speaks French, Swahili, Arabic and English, and that he has the confidence, money and style to blend into any society he chooses. He has spent time in Afghanistan but is more comfortable in Africa’s capitals.

An al-Qaeda informer is said to have warned the Kenyan authorities this week that the terrorist group’s leader in Africa had returned to the scene of one of his murderous crimes. Matthew Kabetu, head of Kenya’s anti-terrorist squad, said yesterday that the terrorist leader had been spotted in the resort. The authorities had been hunting him since the CIA snatched another known al-Qaeda fighter in neighbouring Somalia six weeks ago while the world’s attention was concentrated on the war in Iraq. The Americans had reportedly paid a Somali warlord called Mohammed Dheere to snatch the al-Qaeda suspect, known only as Issa, from the Red Cross Hospital in northern Mogadishu. Issa was there recovering from injuries from a gunfight.

He was flown in secret to Kenya where, to the Americans’ fury, the new Internal Security Minister announced Issa’s capture. This Yemen-born al-Qaeda operative is alleged to have smuggled the missiles into Kenya that were used to target the Israeli holiday airliner last November. Issa is said to have transported the missiles through the port of Kismaayo and into Somalia, where Mohammed had one of his many hideouts.

American intelligence chiefs need to discover how the al-Qaeda network has put together its latest plan. US officials had been confident that Osama bin Laden and the group’s leadership were on the run around the borders of Afghanistan and in no position to co-ordinate an operation like this one in Kenya and the apparent campaign in Saudi to drive out Western workers and allied forces.

One intelligence source said: “Mohammed would not carry out a sophisticated attack like this without some sort of sanction from the top. But it would be up to him to acquire the manpower and the weapons to be used and to figure out the mechanics of the attack. He has proved he is a past master at this.”

American officials had hoped that they had cut off al-Qaeda’s links in Kenya after last year’s suicide attack on Israeli holidaymakers. They helped to train a new local anti-terrorist force and moved more than 500 FBI agents into Kenya. Bin Laden long ago identified countries such as Kenya as fertile territory to augment his network. He had moved to Khartoum in December 1991 and swiftly extended his contacts through the Muslim communities in countries such as Somalia and Ethiopia.

In June 1995 al-Qaeda tried to kill Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian President, during a visit to Ethiopia. This assassination was to have been followed shortly afterwards by attacks on the American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

But the embassy operation, devised by Mohammed, was delayed because of the reaction to the attempt on Mubarak’s life. Bin Laden shifted his base to Afghanistan.

Explore World News

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• Green activists 'are keeping Africa poor'
• 'Delayed justice' fear for OJ Simpson
• Sex and the sari