The U.S. military has reacted to the death of one of the leaders of the Islamist militant ‘al-Shabaab’ group.
Abdullahi Nadir, a top leader of the Al-Shabaab terror organization, was killed in an operation conducted by Somali National Army on 1 October.
According to the statement, Abdullahi Nadir (Alias- Abdullahi Yare) was killed by the National Army of Somalia in a planned operation in cooperation with international partners.
The operation was conducted in the Haram area of the Middle Jubba region of the country on 1 October, 2022.
As per the information shared by Somalia’s Ministry of Information and obtained by Republicworld.com, Nadir was the Chief Prosecutor of the al-Shabaab group and was ‘one of the most qualified Khawarij Al-Shabaab.’
Being one of the co-founders of al-Shabaab, Nadir carried a $3 million bounty on his head from the United States.
According to the country’s information ministry, the operation that killed Nadir happened on Saturday.
No civilians were injured or killed in the strike that took place near Jilib, roughly 230 miles southwest of Mogadishu, AFRICOM said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
It was gathered that Nadir held other posts within the terror outfit, one of them being the Head of Council and Finance and was prepared by al-Shabaab to replace the top leader, Abu Ubaidah (Diriye), who was killed in a US airstrike in September 2014.
Moreover, Nadir had served as the head of media for al-Shabaab, as per the Rewards for Justice website of the US government.
“Al-Shabaab is the largest and most kinetically active al-Qaeda network in the world and has proved both its will and capability to attack U.S. forces and threaten U.S. security interests. U.S. Africa Command, alongside its partners, continues to take action to prevent this malicious terrorist group from planning and conducting attacks on civilians,” the statement said.
“U.S. Africa Command’s forces will continue training, advising, and equipping partner forces to give them the tools that they need to degrade al-Shabaab.”
In recent weeks, Somali security forces have touted gains made against the Al-Qaeda-linked group while fighting alongside local self-defense groups.
But Al-Shabab has continued to conduct deadly raids, including two last Friday that killed at least 16 people.
Since 2006, the group has killed tens of thousands of people in bombings in its fight to overthrow Somalia’s Western-backed central government and implement its interpretation of Islamic law.
Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, elected by lawmakers in May, has promised to take the fight to the rebels after three years in which his predecessor, consumed by political infighting, took little action against al-Shabab.
In August, Mohamud appointed a former al-Shabab spokesman, Muktar Robow into his new cabinet.
Somalia’s military is supported by U.S. troops and drones and an African Union peacekeeping mission.
It was not immediately clear which international partners participated in the operation that killed Nadir.
Reuters/NAN