Omar Awadh Omar, a Kenyan described as the deputy commander of al-Qaida's regional organization, and Hussein Hassan Agade, one of his lieutenants, are among some 36 suspects seized following the bombings that killed 79 people as they watched the World Cup soccer final on television.

Uganda's leading Web site, New Vision, reported that Awadh and Agade were arrested in a Kampala hotel Sept. 15. The site quoted intelligence sources as saying the pair were planning a similar attack in Kenya but gave no details.

The sources said that Awadh, whose nom de guerre is Abu Sahal, is a key logistics and intelligence link to al-Shabaab, which is ideologically affiliated with al-Qaida.

He is No. 2 to Fazul Abdullah Mohammed from the Comoros Islands off East Africa, a veteran al-Qaida operative held responsible for the Aug. 7, 1998, bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 241 people.

He is also considered to have masterminded and led twin attacks in Mombasa, a port and resort city on Kenya's Indian Ocean coast Nov. 28, 2002. Sixteen people were killed in the suicide bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel, while Fazul fired two surface-to-air missiles at an Israeli airliner that had just taken from the city's airport. Both missed.

U.N. and aid officials in Somalia say al-Shabaab is being reinforced with jihadist veterans from Afghanistan and Pakistan, buttressing U.S. concerns that al-Qaida/al-Shabaab are planning to expand their operations abroad.

The July 11 bombings in Kampala were seen as the work of seasoned al-Qaida operatives, although the attacks were linked to the Somali conflict.

Uganda contributes troops to a 7,000-strong African Union peacekeeping force that is about all that prevents the shaky Transitional Federal Government in Mogadishu falling to al-Shabaab.

Western intelligence officials fear al-Qaida wants to link jihadists in Somalia with al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula based in Yemen, across the Gulf of Aden from the Horn of Africa.

If that is the jihadists' plan, they would be able to straddle the key shipping route through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the southern end of the Red Sea. The strait links the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea and is a vital oil artery from the Persian Gulf.

Former CIA officer Philip Giraldi, currently executive director of the Council for the National Interest in Washington, said he believes that the administration of President Barack Obama is gearing up for conflict with al-Qaida and its fellow travelers in Somalia and Yemen.

"The administration is clearly thinking beyond Afghanistan (and even Iran), anticipating the next battlefronts in Yemen and Somalia," he wrote in The American Conservative.

"It is assiduously gathering resources to enter the fray, including setting up business fronts that can be used by covert operatives."

The nerve center of the operations envisaged by Giraldi will be the U.S. military base at Camp Lemonnier, a former French Foreign Legion camp in Djibouti, east of Somalia in the Horn of Africa.

The U.S. base was established after 9/11 to combat terrorism in the Horn of Africa. From there, U.S. Special Forces and the CIA, using informants on the ground, have been running occasional strikes against al-Shabaab and al-Qaida operatives in Somalia since 2006.

"CIA and Special Ops soldiers have been busy placing sensors and electronic surveillance devices throughout the Horn of Africa and in Yemen to permit greatly expanded operations," Giraldi wrote.

"Both CIA and (U.S.) Army units in Djibouti have recently been beefed up in expectation that fighting will intensify in 2011."

Whether this will involve U.S. boots on the ground in Somalia isn't clear but it's unlikely. Initially, at least, targeted assassinations and other such in-and-out operations are more likely.

The Ugandan sources said Fazul began planning the Kampala bombings after U.S. commandos assassinated his close associate, Saleh Ali Nabhan, in Somalia Sept. 14, 2009.

Once that operation, supervised by a senior operative identified only as Jabir, had been concluded he and Awadh met in Nairobi, Kenya's capital, to start planning twin bombings in Kenya. The target wasn't disclosed.

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