An Al-Shabab spokesman denied the Kenyan MoD’s claims, the BBC reported.
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Kenyatta did not say which groups he was referring to, but Kenya has been hit by gun and grenade attacks by al Shabaab, whose fighters killed 148 people at the were behind a massacre at the Garissa University, about 200 km (120 miles) from the Somali border, in April.
Obonyo said Mahad Mohammed Karatey alias Mahat Karatey, the Al-Shabaab deputy commander and overall head of the Alamnyat (Al-Shabaab intelligence wing) was killed alongside ten other commanders on Nadaris camp between Buale and Sukow on Feb 8.
The news comes more than a month after al-Shabaab militants ambushed a Kenya Defense Forces camp at El Adde in Somalia, killing an unspecified number of Kenyan soldiers.
Karate was put on the U.S. state department’s wanted terrorist list in April 2015 after the Garissa attack, which followed the 2013 attack in the Kenyan capital when Shabab gunmen slaughtered at least 67 people at Nairobi’s Westgate Mall.
Obonyo said the spy chief was presiding over a ceremony for an estimated 80 Amniyat recruits “who had completed their training, and were due for deployment to carry out more terrorist attacks”.
“During the engagement, the AMISOM troops killed 20 terrorists while many others escaped with multiple injuries”, said Col David Obonyo, Spokesman for the Kenya military.
Al-Shabaab has waged an insurgency in Somalia since 2006 to impose its version of Islamic law.
The killing comes a few weeks after the Kenyan military forces withdrew from two towns in southern Somalia, following the January 15 attack in the southwest Somali region of El Adde which Al Shabab took credit for, claiming to have killed 100 Kenyan soldiers.
Authorities also believe Karatey had a hand in the El Adde attack.
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Kenya deployed its troops in Somalia in 2011 to help troops from other African countries fight the Al Qaeda-affiliated extremist group.
