Friday December 22, 2023
Mogadishu (HOL) - The Somali National Army, supported by the Galmudug Dervish army and local forces, recently liberated several strategic areas in the southern Mudug region.
According to state-owned media reports on Friday, joint forces re-captured the village of Adaley, the main road connecting Amara and Ellhur districts, and Yagoos Mountain, which was a strategic village that militants used to protect against threats from the city of Aad and surrounding areas.
The government's ongoing operations against the group have demonstrated progress. Just a day ago, Maalim Ayman, a key leader of the al-Shabaab terror group, was killed earlier this week in an airstrike by the US African Command in Somalia, the government said Thursday.
Information Minister Daud Aweis said that Ayman was killed Dec 17 in an operation by the Somali national army with assistance from US forces.
The US Department of State's Rewards for Justice (RFJ) program offered a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction in any country of Ayman earlier this year. Ayman was the mastermind of the Jan. 5, 2020, terror attack on US and Kenyan personnel at the Manda Bay Airfield in Kenya's coastal region of Lamu.