Mogadishu, Somalia ? In lawless Mogadishu, where U.S. officials fear al-Qaida members are plotting their next attack, the word is out: catch a terrorist, collect rewards as high as $5 million.

At least four al-Qaida terrorist suspects are in Somalia, Kenyan officials and U.N. experts say, and Americans are trying to capture them in a country without an effective central government for more than a decade, officials and gunmen told The Associated Press.

U.S. agents are working through proxies and have recruited a network of informants who keep an eye out for suspected terrorists, according to a Western security official and several prominent Somalis, all speaking on condition of anonymity.

So far, those efforts are known to have netted at least one al-Qaida suspect — Suleiman Abdalla Salim Hemed, who’s accused of playing a role in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa — but rumors abound of gunmen kidnapping Arabs and turning them over to U.S. agents.

A Somali warlord, Mohammed Dheere, coordinated the March capture of Hemed at the behest of U.S. officials, gunmen familiar with the operation told AP, speaking privately for fear of reprisals. Most Somalis believe Dheere was generously rewarded.

Kenya’s national security minister, Chris Murungaru, claimed credit for Hemed’s capture and said he was turned over to U.S. authorities, who have refused to comment.

But the gunmen said U.S. agents regularly visit Dheere at his Mogadishu home, and an AP reporter saw two of the alleged agents, dressed in regular clothing, moving through Mogadishu using a team of bodyguards belonging to Bashir Rageh, a wealthy businessman closely associated with Dheere.

One of the most-wanted al-Qaida suspects, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, is thought to be hiding in Somalia, a senior Kenyan security official told AP on Wednesday.

Mohammed, a native of Comoros, has been indicted by a U.S. court in the 1998 al-Qaida bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 231 people. The United States is offering $5 million for information leading to his capture.

Mohammed also is accused of planning a 2002 attack in Kenya, where a car bomb exploded outside the Paradise Hotel on Nov. 28, killing 12 Kenyans and three Israeli tourists. Minutes before, two missiles fired by terrorists missed an Israeli chartered jet taking off from Mombasa, Kenya.

Somalia offers an attractive location for covert operations, but the country is nothing like Afghanistan, where al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden’s Islamic militants were welcomed and worked unhindered, establishing large training camps.

Somalia’s clan-based society is deeply Islamic, but the vast majority of Somalis follow Sufism, which is vehemently opposed to al-Qaida’s militant, politically infused interpretation of Islam.

As a result, the warlords who run the country, drawing support and gunmen from their clans, are decidedly secular in their politics.