{"id":13564,"date":"2023-01-29T00:16:05","date_gmt":"2023-01-28T22:16:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/?p=13564"},"modified":"2023-03-03T11:42:19","modified_gmt":"2023-03-03T09:42:19","slug":"us-assault-operation-in-somalia-killed-top-isis-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/us-assault-operation-in-somalia-killed-top-isis-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"US assault operation in Somalia killed top ISIS leader"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>United States military conducted an assault operation in northern Somalia and killed several Islamic State members, including ISIS leader in Somalia Bilal-al-Sudani.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin said in a statement that the U.S. military conducted the operation on January 25 on orders from U.S. President Biden and killed &#8220;a key facilitator for ISIS\u2019s global network&#8221;. No civilians were harmed as a result of the U.S. operation in the East African country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to a U.S. defense official, the raid was conducted by the U.S. special operations forces and the U.S. had prepared for the possibility of capturing al-Sudani, however, the response of the hostile force to the operation &#8220;resulted in his death&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Austin highlighted that &#8220;Al-Sudani was responsible for fostering the growing presence of ISIS in Africa and for funding the group\u2019s operations worldwide, including in Afghanistan.&#8221; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Secretary Austin said the operation &#8220;leaves the United States and its partners safer and more secure, and it reflects our steadfast commitment to protecting Americans from the threat of terrorism at home and abroad,&#8221; according to the U.S. Department of Defense statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Austin added that &#8220;We are grateful to our extraordinary service members as well as our intelligence community and other interagency partners for their support to this successful counterterrorism operation.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A U.S. official who briefed on military operation said, al-Sudani has &#8220;a long history as a terrorist in Somalia.&#8221; The official added that &#8220;Before he joined ISIS, he was designated by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2012 for his role in Shabaab [group], helping foreign fighters to travel to an Al Shabaab training camp, facilitating financing for foreign violent extremists in Somalia.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The U.S. first received intelligence on Bilal-al-Sudani\u2019s whereabouts months ago. A U.S. official said, &#8220;This operation was the result of extraordinary coordination and careful planning across all elements of the U.S. government for many months.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/US-Somalia-danab-brigade.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/US-Somalia-danab-brigade.jpg?resize=821%2C438&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-13565\" width=\"821\" height=\"438\"\/><\/a><figcaption><em><sup>U.S. forces host a land navigation course with the Danab Brigade in Somalia, on May 18, 2021. (Image Credit: U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Zoe Russell)<\/sup><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>The U.S. military personnel have been operating in Somalia to provide advise-and-assist support to the country&#8217;s forces. The U.S. forces served in Somalia under the Africa Command and have been helping Somali forces in the fight against the al-Shabab terrorist group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>United States military conducted an assault operation in northern Somalia and killed several Islamic State members, including ISIS leader in Somalia Bilal-al-Sudani.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[38,1,125],"tags":[355,310,226,434,14,5,83,11,7,471],"class_list":["post-13564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa","category-news","category-united-states","tag-africa","tag-counterterrorism","tag-intelligence","tag-isil","tag-isis","tag-military","tag-somalia","tag-terrorism","tag-u-s","tag-u-s-army"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/ISIS-terrorist-fighters.jpg?fit=690%2C370&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jJWb-3wM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13564"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13575,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13564\/revisions\/13575"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}