A US-drone strike carried out yesterday in Somalia's Middle Juba region appears to have killed its intended target, according to American officials.
The target was Ibrahim Ali, who the US reported was an explosives specialist for al-Shabab, an armed Islamist terrorist group in Somalia. According to an American official quoted by The New York Times, Ali is purported to have been an expert at making homemade bombs and suicide vests. Another al-Shabab member is said to have been killed in the air strike.
Residents reported hearing a loud boom and finding a car burning with two people inside. According to witnesses, al-Shabab members quickly converged on the area and took the bodies away.
Al-Shabab has increased its reach in recent months, staging a large attack on a mall in Nairobi, Kenya last month which left at least 67 people dead and the upscale mall a smoldering ruin. Al-Shabab said the attack was in response to Kenyan military offenses against al-Shabab along the border with Kenya. It also prompted the US to attempt to capture an al-Shabab militant in the Somalian coastal town of Barawe, where US commandos were repulsed by fire from al-Shabab fighters. Many believe that the intended target was a leading al-Shabab commander, Abdukadir Mohamed Abdukadir, who is also known as Ikrima.
In 2010, the Islamist al-Shabab took control of wide swathes of southern Somalia, including the capital Mogadishu, before joint offenses by African Union, Ethiopian, and Kenyan troops forced it to retreat to the countryside in 2011. It has since been fighting a guerilla war, using suicide bombings and hit and run attacks against AU forces in Mogadishu and across the country.