WASHINGTON: Al-Shabab’s head of external operations was the hit of the latest United States airstrike against the militant group, two sources, including an al-Shabab defector, told VOA Somali.
According to the Voice of America, Former al-Shabab official Omar Mohamed Abu Ayan told VOA that veteran military commander Osman Mohamed Abdi, known as Moallim Osman, was injured in the US attack.
Somalia’s Ministry of Information also confirmed the target’s name and said Moallim Osman oversees bringing foreign fighters into Somalia to help al-Shabab.
A United States Africa Command spokesperson said he appears to have survived the airstrike.
“Following a comprehensive battle damage assessment, United States-AFRICOM has determined that one al-Shabab leader was injured due to the operation,” Lieutenant Commander Timothy S Pietrack, an AFRICOM spokesman, told VOA on Tuesday.
The strike occurred Saturday in Jilib, an al-Shabab stronghold about 385 kilometres southwest of Mogadishu.
An AFRICOM said, “The command’s initial assessment is that no civilians were injured or killed.”
Moallim Osman is a veteran commander who has held several positions within al-Shabab, including defence chief, according to a Somali official who requested anonymity because he does not have the authorization to speak to the media.
Somali officials also say he was planning the group’s January 2016 attack against an African Union military base manned by Kenyan forces in El Adde. According to Somali security sources, it remains the deadliest militant attack on peacekeepers in Somalia and is the hometown of Moallim Osman.
Media reports put the attack’s death toll at more than 140 Kenyan troops, a number the Kenyan government didn’t contest. Kenya forces abandoned the base after the attack.
Somali officials said Moallim Osman’s recent role includes supervising al-Shabab attacks in Kenya, where for years the group has carried out strikes against armed forces, and he directed al-Shabab’s opportunistic incursion into eastern Ethiopia last July.
