Target; al-Shabab

Stars & Stripes reports that US drones are targeting al-Shabab leaders in Somalia, according to their sources there;

Local reporters in Somalia, however, have claimed that U.S. drones struck late Monday in southern Somalia, where top al-Shabab officials had been conducting meetings.

The group’s leader — Ahmed Abdi Godane — was among a group of senior al-Shabab officials in the village of Dhaytubako, according to the Bloomberg news agency.

“We believe that a large number of senior al-Shabab officials have been hurt in the attack, but I cannot specifically confirm if Godane was killed,” said Abdulkadir Mohamed Nur, a regional governor, in a phone interview with Bloomberg. “He was among those meeting during the attack.”

Fox News says that six were killed in the strike but its not clear if Godane was among those ventilated.

The official said that the strike took place in a forest near Sablale district, 105 miles south of Mogadishu, where the group trains its fighters. The governor of Somalia’s Lower Shabelle region, Abdiqadir Mohamed Nor, told The Associated Press that as government and African Union forces were heading to a town in Sablale district, they heard something that sounded like an “earthquake” as drones struck al-Shabaab bases.

“There was an airstrike near Sablale, we saw something,” Nor said.

It was much easier to kill all of these cretins when they were all in Iraq, but now the US is forced to fight on several fronts because there’s no focus. We’re still killing them in Iraq in dribs and drabs, but now we have to kill them in North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa as well as keep our own homeland secure. And, oh, yeah, we’re increasing our presence in the Philippines to fight the Moro jihadists there, too. I guess that’s the danger of not finishing the job at hand when we have the opportunity and the means. You’d have thought someone would have mentioned that at some point.

Category: Terror War