U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says al-Qaida has suffered another major blow with the death of Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in east Africa.

Somali officials announced Saturday that the al-Qaida operative was killed five days earlier at a Mogadishu checkpoint.

Clinton, who is on a visit to Tanzania, said his death represents the second major loss to al-Qaida since the killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. special forces last month.

Al-Qaida operatives bombed the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on August 7, 1998, killing 224 people.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Clinton laid flowers at a memorial to the 12 Tanzanians killed in the Dar es Salaam blast.

Earlier, she visited Zambia to attend a forum on the U.S. African Growth and Opportunity Act.

She heads Monday to Ethiopia, where she will give a foreign policy speech and meet with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi before returning to Washington on Tuesday.