Washington announced on Thursday that the US military had killed Bilal al-Sudani, a key ISIS collaborator, along with 10 other terrorists in an “assault operation” in northern Somalia.
US forces attempted to capture al-Sudani in what was described as a “mountain cave complex,” but he was killed in the ensuing fighting Wednesday night, a senior White House official said.
Al-Sudani was previously sanctioned by the US in 2012 when he was linked to the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab, which included “assisting foreign fighters to travel to an al-Shabaab training camp” and facilitating funding for foreign violent extremists in Somalia “.
He is believed to have “supported the expansion and activities of ISIS in Africa and beyond the continent”, including the “deadly” Khorasan branch of ISIS in Afghanistan.
The raid was planned for months and involved several US government agencies, a White House spokesman said. The Pentagon briefed President Joe Biden on the operation last week, and the commander in chief signed it off earlier this week.
“Through this and other operations, President Biden has made it clear that we are committed to finding and eliminating terrorist threats to the United States and the American people, wherever they hide, however far away they may be,” the official said.
“The United States and our allies and partners are safer today as a result of this operation yesterday, and the President will continue to take all necessary steps to protect the United States and its interests around the world from terrorist threats where they exist,” he said. added.
No American servicemen were killed, but one serviceman was wounded by an American military dog. According to official figures, no civilians were killed or injured.
Last November, US Central Command confirmed that US forces in northwestern Syria had killed Abu al-Hasan al-Hashimi al-Quraishi, who at the time was the leader of a terrorist group, a month earlier.
The group later chose Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Quraishi to replace him, the spokesman said without elaborating.
Somalia’s population of some 16 million has been shaken for years by terrorist attacks and other acts of violence, especially by the Al-Shabaab terrorist group.
Daesh announced Abu al-Hassan al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi as its new leader in March 2022 following the death of its predecessor, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi.
The latest al-Quraishi was the brother of slain former Daesh chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, according to two Iraqi security officials and one Western security source.
Both al-Quraishi and al-Baghdadi died by blowing themselves up and their family members during US raids on their safe houses in northern Syria.
The Daesh terrorist group emerged from the chaos of a civil war in neighboring Syria in the past decade and took over vast areas of Iraq and Syria in 2014.
Al-Baghdadi proclaimed a self-declared “caliphate” from a mosque in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul that same year and proclaimed himself the “caliph” of all Muslims.
Daesh’s brutal rule, during which it killed and executed thousands in the name of a twisted interpretation of religion, came to an end in Mosul when Iraqi and international forces defeated the group there in 2017.
Its remaining thousands of fighters have largely hid in remote areas in recent years, but can still carry out serious insurgent-style attacks.
