US and Somali forces kill al-Shabaab commander with $10m bounty on head
Source: Agence France-Presse
US and Somali forces kill al-Shabaab commander with $10m bounty on head
AFP in Nairobi
Fri 22 Dec 2023 13.00 EST
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.
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Original Guardian link (registration required): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/22/us-somalia-forces-kill-al-shabaab-commander-maalim-ayman