Senior Figure in Somalia’s Al Shabaab Killed in Air Strike: State Media

File photo showing Kenyan police officers checking vehicles after an ambush by gunmen in Lamu county, Kenya, on Jan. 2, 2020. The U.S. Africa Command confirmed an Al-Shabaab terror attack at Manda Bay Airfield, Kenya, on Jan. 5, 2020. Stringer/AFP/Getty Images

MOGADISHU—A senior terrorist commander in Somalia’s al Shabaab group with a $5 million bounty on his head was killed in an American airstrike on Tuesday, Feb. 22, according to Somalia state media, in a blow to the militants’ Islamist insurgency.

According to a Somalia state radio report late on Saturday, Bashir Mohamed Mahamoud was the head of al Shabaab’s operations. He was killed in the airstrike in the Sakow district of the Jubba region in Somalia’s south.