“Their removal will degrade al-Shebab’s ability to meet the group’s objectives in Somalia, which includes recruiting new members, establishing bases and planning attacks on USA and AMISON (African Union Mission to Somalia) forces there”, he said.
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The Obama administration will disclose how many people have been killed by US drones and counterterrorism strikes since 2009, the White House said Monday, lifting one element of secrecy shrouding the controversial counterterrorism program.
The Pentagon’s announcement of the attack in Somalia came as the Obama administration said it planned in the future to be more transparent about the number of casualties caused by the use of counterterrorism strikes outside declared war zones.
They said they delayed announcing the strike until they could assess the outcome.
The group also claimed responsibility for a bomb placed aboard a Somali jetliner that tore a hole through the fuselage. “The fighters were there training… for a large-scale attack”, he said. In 2013, the group held hostage the Westgate Mall in Nairobi where 67 people were killed.
“There was a sense that the operational phase was about to happen”, Davis said.
Al-Shabab, or the Youth in English, is the main suspect of many terrorist attacks. The official number of al-Shabab fighters remains unclear but numbers in the thousands and fewer than 10,000. He said there were no known civilian casualties.
US lawmakers have long pressed for more transparency about how many civilians the USA kills in drone strikes each year, but those calls for more disclosure have traditionally faced opposition from the USA intelligence community.
It comes as East Africa analysts say al Shabaab has been making a comeback since U-S strikes killed the group’s top leadership in 2014.
The bomb exploded at a checkpoint in the small central town of Beledweyne, some 200 miles (325 kilometers) north of the capital Mogadishu, where last month Shebab insurgents claimed responsibility for a bomb attack which ripped a hole in a passenger plane shortly after takeoff.
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At the same time, al-Shabab assassination teams have fanned out across Mogadishu and other major towns, stealthily eliminating government officials and others they consider apostates.
