Somali troops and US forces have killed a senior commander of the al-Shabaab militant group who had a $10m bounty on his head over an attack that left three Americans dead.
“Maalim Ayman, a senior leader of al-Shabaab, was confirmed to have been killed in a joint operation by the Somali national army with assistance from US forces on December 17th,” Kenya’s information minister, Daud Aweis, said on X on Thursday.
He said Ayman was responsible for “planning multiple lethal terrorist attacks in Somalia and nearby countries”.
The al-Qaida-linked Islamists have led a 16-year insurgency against the fragile central government and control swathes of rural Somalia.
Ayman, leader of the al-Shabaab unit Jaysh Ayman, was wanted by the US over an attack on an airbase in Kenya in January 2020 in which three Americans died.
In January, the US state department said Ayman planned the 2020 attack on the Manda Bay airfield on Kenya’s northern coast, offering a reward of up to $10m (£8m) for information that could lead to his capture.
Washington has worked closely with Mogadishu to counter al-Shabaab, which has come under pressure from a Somali government offensive launched last year with the backing of local clan militias as well as air support from the US and African Union forces.
But after making significant progress in recapturing territory, the offensive has stalled, raising questions about the government’s capacity to fight the Islamists.
A study last year by George Washington University’s program on extremism said that Jaysh Ayman was formed by al-Shabaab in an effort to penetrate into Kenya. The unit, which has exercised growing autonomy, includes foreigners, dual nationals and Kenyans of Somali and non-Somali descent, it said.
An African Union force was deployed in Somalia in 2007 with a six-month mandate but still remains on the ground.
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