mogadishu
Image via Reuters/Abdi Sheikh.
In the aftermath of a Oct. 14 truck bombing that killed over 300 people in Mogadishu, Somalia, thousands of people took to the capital's streets in response to mayor Thabit Abdi's call to unity, according to The Guardian.
An overhead view of The Pentagon in 2008. Photo via David B. Gleason/Wikimedia Commons.
The Pentagon on Sept. 5 confirmed that the leader of al-Shabab, an al-Qaida-linked organization in Africa, was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Somalia this week.
The leader, Ahmed Abdi Godane, was targeted Sept. 1 in an airstrike that hit a vehicle and compound in a militant stronghold south of the capital, Mogadishu.
Al-Shabab has been linked to a number of attacks in Africa, including the bloody siege at the upscale Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, in September 2013 that killed 67 people.
“Removing Godane from the battlefield is a major symbolic and operational loss to al-Shabab,” Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby said in a statement.
At the time of the strike, the Pentagon said it could not confirm Godane’s death.
A truck bomb has killed at least 70 people in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, including a crowd of young students applying for scholarships to study abroad.