Washington (Halbeeg News) – US government has offered a 10 million USD bounty for any person with information on suspected terrorist Moalim Ayman.
Ayman is accused of planning the January 5, 2020 terrorist attack on US and Kenyan military personnel at Lamu’s Manda Bay Airfield in Kenya.
The US Department of State’s Reward for Justice (RFJ) programme says Ayman is the leader of Jaysh Ayman, an Al-Shabaab unit conducting terrorist attacks and operations in Kenya and Somalia.
In the pre-dawn attack, Al-Shabaab fighters killed a US soldier and two US Department of Defense (DoD) contractors.
The fighters also wounded two other US service members and a third DoD contractor.
In a video subsequently released by Al-Shabaab, a spokesperson for the group claimed responsibility for the attack.
Maalim Ayman now joins three other Shabaab leaders with a $10 million bounty on their heads.
The United States has placed bounties on other Shabaab leaders over the last several years, though all with lesser rewards.
Ayman is the emir of Shabaab’s Jaysh Ayman, or its military wing inside northeastern Kenya.
In this role, he oversees attacks across Kenya’s northern counties of Mandera, Garissa, Wajir, and Lamu. It is believed that Jaysh Ayman also conducts attacks in the extreme southern portions of Somalia, as well.
Maalim Ayman is believed to be below Ahmed Iman Ali, Shabaab’s emir for Kenya, and both Yassir Jiis, its overall military emir, and Maalim Osman, Shabaab’s external operations emir, in Shabaab’s hierarchy.
Discussion about this post