Washington:
A US military incursion into Somalia ordered by President Joe Biden killed a key regional leader of the Islamic State terror group, Bilal al-Sudani, US officials said Thursday.
Sudani was killed in a firefight after US troops descended on a mountainous cave complex in northern Somalia hoping to capture him, US officials said.
About 10 of Sudani’s Islamic State associates were killed at the scene, but there were no U.S. casualties, the officials said.
“On January 25, under the orders of the president, the US military carried out a strike operation in northern Somalia that resulted in the deaths of a number of ISIS members, including Bilal al-Sudani,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement.
“Al-Sudani was responsible for fostering ISIS’s growing presence in Africa and funding the group’s operations worldwide, including in Afghanistan,” Austin said.
From his mountain base in northern Somalia, he provided and coordinated funding for IS affiliates not only in Africa, but also for Khorasan, the Islamic State branch active in Afghanistan, a US official said on condition of anonymity.
Ten years ago, before joining the Islamic State, Sudani was involved in recruiting and training fighters for the al-Shabaab extremist movement in Somalia.
“Sudani had an important operational and financial role with specialized skills, making it a prime target for US counter-terrorism efforts,” the official said.
– Plan months –
The operation had been prepared over a period of months, with US troops rehearsing at a site built to mimic the terrain where Sudani were hiding.
Biden authorized the strike earlier this week after discussions with top defense, intelligence and security officials, the official said.
“It was ultimately determined that an intended capture operation was the best option to maximize the intelligence value of the operation and increase its precision in challenging terrain,” another government official said.
“However, the response of the enemy forces to the operation resulted in his death,” the official said.
The only injury to an American in the raid was that a serviceman was bitten by a US military service dog, the official added.
“This operation and all others, President Biden has made it very clear that we are committed to detecting and eliminating terrorist threats to the United States and to the American people, wherever they hide, however far,” the official said.
US forces have long operated in conjunction with and on behalf of the government in Somalia, with most conducting regular airstrikes in support of official forces battling Shabaab rebels.
Some of them are said to have been carried out from a US base in Djibouti, north of Somalia.
U.S. airstrikes in Somalia rose to dozens per year from 2017 to 2020, but also included two to four ground operations per year.
Since Biden became president in 2021, airstrikes have dwindled to just 16 in 2022, and no ground attacks have been recorded, according to data collected by New America, a national security think tank.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is being published from a syndicated feed.)
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