Somali and US forces have killed a senior leader of the militant Islamist al Shabaab group who had planned numerous attacks in Somalia and Kenya, Somalia’s information minister said.
“Maalim Ayman ... was confirmed to have been killed in a joint operation by the Somali National Army with assistance from US forces on December 17th,” Daud Aweis said on his X account late on Thursday.
“Ayman was accountable for planning multiple lethal terrorist attacks in Somalia and nearby countries,” he said.
The US military’s Africa Command (AFRICOM) had conducted an air strike, an AFRICOM official said, but added that the strike’s target was yet to be confirmed.
Who is Rodrigo Duterte? The populist architect of Philippines’ bloody ‘war on drugs’
Case of three siblings abandoned as babies in London suburb confounds police
Hebrew graffiti and a mass funeral in a Lebanese village on the Israeli border
Israeli security services point finger at Netanyahu as they own up to errors over Hamas’s October 7th incursion
The strike was conducted against the militant group near Jilib town in southern Somalia, AFRICOM and the Somali Information Ministry said.
Ayman was on a US state department Rewards for Justice wanted list, with a $10 million (€9 million) reward offered for information leading to his arrest or conviction.
The department said he was responsible for preparing an attack on a military base in Kenya in January 2020 in which three Americans – one US military service member and two contractors – were killed.
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2023
