WASHINGTON // The leader of the Al Shabab militants in Somalia, Ahmed Abdi Godane, was killed in a US airstrike this week, the Pentagon confirmed on Friday.
US special operations forces targeted Godane in southern Somalia in an attack on Monday using manned aircraft and drones to destroy an encampment and a vehicle.
“We have confirmed that Ahmed Godane, the co-founder of Al Shabab, has been killed,” the Pentagon press secretary, Rear Admiral John Kirby, said.
Al Shabab, an offshoot of Al Qaeda, was declared a terrorist organisation by the US state department in 2008. Godane claimed responsibility for the attack last year on the Westgate shopping mall in Kenya’s capital of Nairobi, in which at least 67 people died.
The US had listed Godane as one of the world’s eight top terror fugitives, offering a US$7 million (Dh25.7m) reward for information on his whereabouts, and analysts say his death marked a serious setback for Al Shabab.
“Godane’s removal is a major symbolic and operational loss to the largest Al Qaeda affiliate in Africa and reflects years of painstaking work by our intelligence, military and law enforcement professionals,” the White House said.
Godane was among a number of “high-ranking” Al Shabab officials who were meeting at Dhaytubako, about 300 kilometres south-west of the capital, Mogadishu, when the attack occurred, the governor of Somalia’s Lower Shabelle province, Abdulkadir Mohamed Nur, said a day after the attack.
In recent months, Al Shabab claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in Djibouti that killed a Turkish national and wounded several western soldiers, as well a car bomb at the Mogadishu airport that targeted and killed members of a United Nations convoy, the US said.
Al Shabab was responsible for twin suicide bombings in Kampala, Uganda, on July 11, 2010, that killed more than 70 people, including one American. The group has also been responsible for the assassination of Somali peace activists, international aid workers, numerous civil society figures, and journalists.
Last October, US special operations forces launched an attack on a house in Barawe against another top Shabab commander but were forced to withdraw without killing their target.
Although the strike was “an important step forward” in the campaign against Shabab extremists, the United States “will continue to use the tools at our disposal – financial, diplomatic, intelligence and military – to address the threat that Al Shabab and other terrorist groups pose to the United States and the American people,” the White House said.
“We will also continue to support our international partners, particularly the African Union Mission in Somalia, that are working to support the federal government of Somalia build a secure and stable future for the Somali people.”
Al Shabab militants are fighting to overthrow the Somali government, regularly launching attacks against state targets and in neighboring countries that contribute to the African Union force there.
* Bloomberg News and Agence France-Presse
