A senior al-Shabaab commander was killed last month in a U.S. airstrike, global Islamists terror group al-Qaeda – to which al-Shabaab is affiliated, said in a statement.
Somali authorities at the time said that the country’s military and allied foreign troops had killed the man identified as Ali Mohamed Hussein alias Ali Jabal, believed to have been responsible for several bombings.
Though it did not disclose the nationality of the foreign troops, American soldiers were believed to be the ones involved.
“The cowardly American enemy planes tried to strike him. The first missed him and the second hit, making him a martyr,” said the al Qaeda statement circulated on social media.
Somalia said last month that Ali Jabal’s death would “reduce al Shabaab’s ability to conduct senseless acts of violence against the people of Somalia, its East African neighbors, and the international community.”
Al-Shabaab has waged a decade-long war in the Horn of Africa, seeking to enforce a strict sharia governance.
AMISOM troops have however pushed them out of their hideouts and recaptured towns they once held. They however still manage to conduct strikes in Somalia and in neighbouring countries.
