Abu Mansur al Amriki (standing, background) at the Abu Suleim camp in Somalia.

Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera has some interesting news on the covert raid conducted by US Special Forces, dubbed Celestial Balance, that targeted an al Qaeda leader in Southern Somalia on Sept. 14th. According to a local stringer for the newspaper, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan was not killed but captured alive. Along with Nabhan, American commandos apprehended Abu Mansur al Amriki, the American convert to Islam who has become a commander in charge of military training for Shabaab.

Amriki can be seen in Shabaab's latest propaganda videotape, released on Sunday, leading the training of Shabaab fighters at the Abu Suleim camp.

Witnesses in the village of Roboow told the Il Corriere della Sera stringer that both al Qaeda commanders were boarded on helicopters, then they were probably transferred onto US Navy ships stationing at large off the Somali coast. “Capturing the man sent by Osama to set up the Somali insurgency would be a huge success” for the Americans, says the Italian newspaper. But, as Il Corriere repeatedly points out, this news has not been confirmed.