A senior leader of the Somali terrorist group al-Shabab, who was accused of plotting several attacks that killed 148 Kenyans in a university town and three Americans at a military base, was killed in a U.S. military drone strike last Sunday, according to Somali killed American officials.

Maalim Ayman was killed on December 17 by a U.S. special forces drone strike as part of a joint operation with the Somali National Army, officials said. It is assumed that he is responsible for this attack is Jan. 5, 2020, is a military base in Manda Bay, Kenya, in which two US contract pilots and a US soldier were killed. A third US contractor and two other US soldiers were injured. Six US aircraft were destroyed in the attack.

Somalia, a strategic nation in the Horn of Africa, was Ward off attacks since 2006 by the extremist group al-Shabab, with which Support to the armed forces from the African Union and the United States. Mr Ayman was believed to be the mastermind of a unit carrying out attacks in Kenya, Somalia’s southern neighbor.

The U.S. Africa Command officially confirmed the attack in Somalia, but did not identify the target pending further analysis, the command said said in a statement. But a U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss operational issues, said the attack had successfully targeted Mr. Ayman. Somalia’s information minister confirmed Mr. Ayman’s killing.

Somalia President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, has vowed to defeat the Shabab militarily and financially. Although al-Shabab (which is linked to the terrorist group Qaeda) has lost territory and fighters in recent years, it has proven resilient and resilient continues to carry out deadly attacks in hotels, restaurants and ministries, causing hundreds of deaths.

Mr Ayman is also alleged to have planned the 2015 attack on Garissa University in north-eastern Kenya, which killed 148 people, most of them students. After the gunmen stormed the university at dawn shot students at close rangeMany of them slept in their dormitories.

It was the deadliest terrorist attack in Kenya since the bombing of the US embassy in the capital Nairobi in 1998, which killed more than 200 people and injured thousands more.

The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously earlier this month lifted the arms embargo which was imposed in 1992 after the outbreak of the civil war in Somalia. The Somali president welcomed the move, telling a security conference in New York that it was evidence of the progress his government has made.

The African Union began withdrawing its troops from Somalia this year at the direction of the UN Security Council, and Somali military and police forces have taken over managing Somalia’s security large government institutions.

The American fight against al-Shabab began in 2014 with a handful of military advisers and has steadily grown to a 700-strong training force. President Donald J. Trump backed up the force shortly before he leaves office in 2021. President Biden restored 450 of the troops last year to advise Somali soldiers They are fighting against the Shabab, who still control large parts of the south of the country.

Most of the 16 American strikes in Somalia this year were in defense and support of Somali troops fighting the Shabab on the ground. But Sunday’s attack was a relatively rare, pre-planned attack by U.S. special forces against a Shabab leader, and the first since May.

The attack on Mr. Ayman took place near Jilib, a Shabab-controlled stronghold in southern Somalia, the U.S. military official said.

Somalia’s Information Minister Daud Aweis, who also confirmed Mr. Ayman’s killing, said that Mr. Ayman was the sole target of the attack. He declined to provide further information about how Mr. Ayman was killed or how officials confirmed his identity.

“It took us three days to complete the process of confirming his death,” Mr. Aweis said in a telephone interview.

It was not immediately clear whether anyone else was killed in the attack. The American command, known as Africom, said after an initial assessment that there were “no civilian casualties.”

Somali and American officials say Mr. Ayman was the head of Jaysh Ayman, an al-Shabab unit that helped plan and carry out terrorist attacks in Kenya and Somalia.

Earlier this year, the State Department Reward for Justice program offered up to $10 million for information leading to his arrest or conviction.

By targeting Mr. Ayman, the Somali government “sent a message because we believe that anyone responsible for the merciless acts of violence against our people must be punished or brought to justice,” Information Minister Aweis said. “We recognized that he was an obstacle to Somalia’s goal of creating cohesion and harmony both within Somalia and with its neighbors.”