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US air strike over Somalia kills al-Shabaab security chief, Pentagon says
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An air strike by an unmanned US aircraft over Somalia this week killed Tahliil Abdishakur, the chief of the al-Shabaab militant group’s intelligence and security wing, the Pentagon confirmed on Wednesday.
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The strike, which took place on Monday near Saakow was carried out by US forces working from “actionable intelligence,” the Defense Department said in a statement. The unmanned aircraft fired several Hellfire missiles at a vehicle carrying Tahliil, it said.
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters on Tuesday that Abdishakur was killed in the attack along with another al-Shabaab militant, who was not identified. There were no civilian casualties in the attack, the official said.
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The strike was the latest in a recent campaign against al-Shabaab. In September, a US drone strike killed the group’s main leader, Ahmed Abdi Godane.
On Saturday, Zakariya Ismail Ahmed Hersi, an al-Shabaab leader with a $3m bounty on his head, surrendered, according to a Somali government source and local media.
Al-Shabaab, which is aligned with al-Qaida, is seeking to topple the western-backed Mogadishu government and impose its own strict version of Islamic law in the country. A spokesman for the group could not be reached for comment.