The leader of the Somali terror group al-Shabaab was killed in an airstrike this week, the White House confirmed in a statement last night.
The American drone strike targeted Ahmed Abdi Godane, spiritual leader of the al-Qaeda offshoot which was responsible for last year’s massacre of at least 67 people in a terrorist attack on an Kenyan shopping mall.
It was known that Monday night’s strike had killed six people travelling in two vehicles south of Mogadishu, but it was only yesterday that the US confirmed they had killed one of their most wanted terrorist targets.
“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,” a White House statement said.
“Even as this is an important step forward in the fight against al-Shabaab, the United States will continue to use the tools at our disposal – financial, diplomatic, intelligence and military – to address the threat that al-Shabaab and other terrorist groups pose to the United States and the American people.”