A leader of the Islamic State group, identified as Bilal al-Sudani, and “about ten people” linked to the terrorist organization were killed in a US raid in Somalia on Wednesday, the US executive branch said on Thursday.
“Al-Sudani has been responsible for promoting the Islamic State group’s growing presence in Africa and funding its operations around the world, including in Afghanistan,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a statement.
A senior White House official said in an interview with journalists that this operation, which had been prepared for “several months,” resulted in no casualties either among the civilian population or the American military.
Biden green light
President Joe Biden gave the green light to the operation this week after consulting with senior defense and intelligence officials, she said.
“Ultimately, it was decided that capture (of the jihadist) was the best option to obtain as much information as possible from the operation,” another US official said. But “the reaction of the enemy forces resulted in his death”.
The senior official, who asked not to be named, said the raid was preceded by “intensive rehearsals” by US forces at sites “specially constructed” to mimic the terrain where it took place, a cave in the mountains of northern Somalia . “We were ready to capture al-Sudani,” she said.
hunting terrorists
Joe “Biden has made it very clear that we are committed to finding and eliminating all terrorist threats against the United States and against the American people, wherever they are, even in the most remote of locations,” another White official said house. The only American injured is a soldier injured by his service dog.
The US military, based in Djibouti, has been conducting operations in Somalia for several years in cooperation with the regular Somali army and on behalf of the government.
These are mainly airstrikes against al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamist radicals Shebab conducted from abroad, but it also conducts ground operations in the country, between two and four a year.
Last August, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed on his balcony in Afghanistan by a US drone strike.