Wednesday, June 1, 2016
Somali officials say the organizer of last year's massacre at Garissa University College in Kenya is dead, killed in a late-night military operation.
Mohamed Mohamud, better known as Dulyadeyn, was head of al-Shabab's feared "Amniyat" unit and masterminded the April 2015 attack on the college that left 148 people dead, nearly all of them students.
A senior Somali official, speaking on condition of anonymity, says U.S. helicopters fired missiles, hitting the car in which Dulyadeyn and two others were travelling.
However, a security minister in the Jubba region, Abdurashid Janan, told VOA Somali that the militant was killed by the U.S.-trained Somali commando unit known as Danab, or lightning.
The attack took place in the southern Somali town of Bula-Gaduud, about 30 kilometers north of Kismayo.
Residents, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of concerns for their safety, said they heard the sounds of flighting overnight. “We could hear heavy gunfire and several blasts," one said. "We could also hear sounds of planes flying overhead and at dawn this morning, we saw the government troops transporting three bodies.”
Both the Kenyan and Somali governments had offered rewards for Dulyadeyn.
Somalia’s National Security Agency has confirmed his death. There was no immediate comment from the U.S. military nor al-Shabab.
U.S. troops officially play an "advice and assist" role with Somali forces and the African Union force in Somalia, known as AMISOM.