Kenya’s Army said on Thursday it had killed the intelligence chief of the Shebab insurgents and 10 other commanders in an air strike in Somalia.
The US Government had placed a $5 million bounty on the head of spy chief Mahad Karate, with Kenya celebrating what it called a “major blow” to the Al-Qaeda-linked group.
Kenyan troops, part of an African Union force in Somalia (AMISOM) fighting the insurgents, claimed to have killed Karate, a top commander also responsible for internal security, in an air strike at a Shebab training camp earlier this month. Karate —head of the Shebab’s Amniyat unit, a special security wing responsible for intelligence, attacks and assassinations — is said to have been involved in plotting the 2015 massacre of 148 people at Garissa university in northeastern Kenya. “The killing... Is a major blow to the terrorist group,” army spokesman David Obonyo said in a statement.
“The Kenya Defence Forces, under AMISOM operations, would like to confirm that Mahad Mohammed Karate... And 10 other middle level commanders were killed in a major KDF strike,” in southern Somalia on February 8, Obonyo said.
The claims could not be independently verified, and there was no immediate reaction from the Shebab.
But the 10-day delay in announcing Karate’s death suggests thorough efforts to identify the remains were carried out. Karate was at a Shebab training camp to “preside over the passing out of an estimated 80 Amniyat recruits who had completed their training, and were due for deployment to carry out more terrorist attacks,” Obonyo said.