Senior al-Shabab officer allegedly killed in US raid in Somalia

A senior al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab officer has reportedly been killed in Somalia in an operation by the United States military.

The officer, who remained anonymous, was in the process of planning terrorist attacks in the future, a Somali intelligence official told The Associated Press Wednesday.

The attack came after a warning earlier this month by the United Nations about the danger of the militant group.

The UN experts found “definitive evidence that al-Shabab has been manufacturing home-made explosives since at least July 20, 2017,” based on post-blast analyses carried out by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.

They concluded that the group is responsible for at least 11 attacks with improvised explosive devices in Somalia using home-made explosives.

“The manufacture of home-made explosives means that the group may now have access to far more readily available inputs for the construction of such devices,” they said.

The Somali intelligence chief Fahad Yasin said earlier this month that the country’s intelligence agency is engaged in background screenings to in the hunt for al-Shabab infiltrators.

“The group also continues to take advantage of virtually unregulated mobile money and domestic banking services to collect and transfer revenues throughout the country,” the UN report said.

This is while the Pentagon has planned to reduce the US military involvement in the African and decrease the number its airstrikes over the al-Shabab threat.