A key leader in the Al-Shabab armed group was killed in a U.S. airstrike this week, the Pentagon confirmed on Friday, calling it a significant loss for the Al-Qaeda-affiliated organization.
Ahmed Godane was a co-founder and leader of the group, which has carried out many bombings and suicide attacks in Somalia and elsewhere. Their assaults include the Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi, Kenya, that killed at least 39 people in September 2013.
Godane’s death has left a large gap in Al-Shabab's leadership and could pose the biggest challenge to its unity since it emerged as a fighting force eight years ago.
The Pentagon's press secretary, Rear Adm. John Kirby, confirmed Godane’s death Friday in a brief written statement. President Barack Obama, speaking at the conclusion of a NATO summit in Newport, Wales, said the successful U.S. strike was an example of his administration's determination to hit back at terrorists.
The U.S. State Department declared Al-Shabab a foreign terrorist organization in 2008. American military forces have targeted the group many times.
Somalia's government, with support from African peacekeepers and Western intelligence, has battled to curb Al-Shabab's influence and to drive the group from areas it has continued to control since it was expelled from Mogadishu in 2011.
The group, whose name means “The Young Men” in Arabic, arose after U.S.-backed Ethiopian forces invaded and occupied parts of Somalia in 2006, unseating the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) from the capital, where it had managed to supersede the authority of reigning warlords in the war-ravaged city. Ethiopia, which is mostly Christian, and Somalia, an almost entirely Muslim country, have been locked in territorial disputes for decades over their shared border.
Al-Shabab emerged from the remnants of the ICU’s military wing in the chaos that followed its ouster.
Climbing out of the marshes of southern Somalia, bent on battling Western-backed politicians and forces, as well as rival armed groups, Al-Shabab lacked the authority or organization of the ICU.
U.S. officials had said after the strike on Monday that U.S. special operations forces, using manned and drone aircraft, had destroyed an encampment and a vehicle using several Hellfire missiles and laser-guided munitions. But they did not confirm that Godane had been killed until Friday.
Kirby said on Tuesday, before the Pentagon was certain that Godane had died, that the U.S. strike was conducted south of Mogadishu and that it had destroyed the vehicle that was targeted.
Godane publicly claimed responsibility for the Westgate mall attack, saying it was revenge for Kenyan and Western involvement in Somalia and noting its proximity to the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Abdi Ayante, director of the Heritage Institute for Policy Studies in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, said Godane's death would be "a game changer in many ways for Al-Shabab."
"What is likely to happen is a struggle for power," he said a day before the Pentagon confirmed Godane's death. Ayante said fragmentation was also possible in the absence of a leader with Godane's experience and ruthless approach to dissent.
Kirby said in his statement that "removing Godane from the battlefield is a major symbolic and operational loss to Al-Shabab."
A separate statement from White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the operation that killed Godane was the result of "years of painstaking work by our intelligence, military and law enforcement professionals."
Earnest said the administration would continue to use financial, diplomatic, intelligence and military tools to address the threat posed by Al-Shabab.
Al Jazeera and wire services
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