None of the top three suspected terrorists in Somalia were killed in a US airstrike this week, but Somalis with close ties to al-Qaida were killed, a senior US official in the region said Thursday.

A day earlier, a Somali official had said a US intelligence report had referred to the death of one of the three senior al-Qaida members believed responsible for bombing US embassies in East Africa. But US and Ethiopian troops in southern Somalia were still pursuing the three, the US official said Thursday on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.