Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON: The United States of America (USA) on Thursday offered a $10 million reward for finding the leader of Somalia’s Al-Shabaab militants’ group over a 2020 attack on the air base in Kenya that killed three American citizens.
USA State Department
According to the Agence France-Presse (AFP), the US State Department said that it could offer the reward for prrovide information leading to arrest and conviction in any state of Maalim Ayman, leader of the Al-Shabaab unit Jaysh Ayman.
The US State Department statement said that Maalim has responsibility for preparing for the January 2020 attack. Al-Shabaab, the Somali militant movement designated a terrorist group by Washington since 2008, claimed responsibility for the attack at Manda Bay Airfield on Kenya’s northern coast.
Authority said that a Jaysh Ayman unit carried out the pre-dawn raid, killed two US armed forces members and a US defense contractor, and destroyed many aircrafts.
The United States has worked both with Kenya and the fragile government administrations in Mogadishu to counter Al-Shabaab, which lost ground inside Somalia in recent months under pressure from the African Union force and US air force strikes.
A study previous year by George Washington University’s Programme on extremism said that the Jaysh Ayman was formed by Al-Shabaab in an effort to penetrate Kenya. The unit, which has exercised growing autonomy, includes foreigners, the dual nationals, and Kenyans both of Somali and non-Somali descent, it said.
