A senior leader of al-Shabaab, who was hunted by the United States for years, is dead, the Islamist militant group said on Thursday. Hassan Abdullah Hersi Turki, 73, died of natural causes after years of illness, al-Shabaab spokesperson Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, also known as Ali Dhere, told dpa. Turki was reportedly a close ally of former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
The US tried to kill Turki in 2008 in an airstrike on Somalia’s Lower Juba region and searched for him ever since. The death of Turki could be a blow to the militant group, which has in the last one year lost a number of senior leaders, including the former leader Ali Godane in a US airstrike in September last year.
The U.N. Security Council said Turki played a role in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
