Pentagon said Friday.
"The U.S. military
undertook operations against Godane on Sept. 1, which led to his death.
Removing Godane from the battlefield is a major symbolic and operational
loss to Al-Shabaab," said Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John
Kirby.
On Monday, U.S. military
conducted a strike in the African country targeting Godane, who had
pledged allegiance to al Qaeda. He headed Al-Shabaab as it terrorized
East Africa, killing Somali officials, aid workers and others in a spate
of suicide bombings. Godane allegedly was behind 2013's deadly siege of
a Nairobi, Kenya, shopping mall.
Before this week's strike, the U.S. military was tipped off to what Kirby called "actionable intelligence ... strong enough" to suggest Godane's whereabouts.
In response, U.S.
commandos flew -- aided by drones -- into an area south of the Somali
capital, Mogadishu, around 6:20 p.m. (11:20 a.m. ET) Monday.
Abdikadir Mohamed Nur
Sidii, governor of Somalia's Lower Shabelle region, characterized the
attack near the port city of Barawe as so ferocious "it jolted the
entire region."
Sidii said, "I never heard such a huge and deafening blast as the result of the airstrike."
Earlier this week, Kirby
didn't elaborate on how much firepower was involved, beyond the use of
Hellfire and laser-guided missiles. Somali intelligence officials
counted at least four such missiles.
After the attack, an
Al-Shababb Twitter account said one person was killed but asserted it
wasn't Godane. "'Ahmed Abdi Godane' is alive and doing fine," the tweet
said, calling itself an "official mujahedin account" in the Islamic land
of Somalia.
At the time, CNN was unable to verify the authenticity of that claim on Twitter.
Source:CNN
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