Abdullahi Nadir, a senior member of the Al Shabab insurgent group, was killed over the weekend in Somalia during a combined military operation.
According to the Somalia Ministry of Information, Nadir was killed on Saturday during an operation by the Somali National Army and unidentified foreign security partners in the village of Haramka, in the Middle Juba region.
Nadir, whom the Somali government referred to as “one of the most significant members of Al Shabab,” had a $3 million bounty placed on him by the United States.
Nadir was regarded as having ties to both Ahmed Diriye, the current head of Al Shabab, and Ahmed Abdi Godane, the organization’s former leader who was assassinated by a US airstrike in 2014.
According to the government, he would take over as group leader next.
“His death is a thorn removed from the Somali nation, and the Somali people will be relieved from his misguidance and horrific acts,” the information ministry said.
Numerous Al Shabab militants were also reportedly slain over the weekend in Tarashanta hamlet, in the Hiran region, between Baladwayne and Halgan, while attempting to blow up a well.
Since 2006, thousands of people have died in clashes between the government and Al Shabab, an organisation with ties to Al Qaeda that seeks to impose a strict version of Sharia or Islamic law.
Security forces in Somalia claim that by fighting alongside neighbourhood self-defence units in recent weeks, they have achieved progress on the battlefield.
However, residents have said that Al Shabab has continued to carry out murderous attacks over the past few weeks, destroying wells, burning down homes, and murdering civilians in various regions of central and southern Somalia.
Al Shabab fighters carried out a bombing north of the city on Friday, killing a journalist, the chief of police of Mogadishu, and his two bodyguards.
The group’s bloodiest assault was in October 2017 in Mogadishu when an explosives-filled lorry exploded, killing 512 people.