WASHINGTON. In an operation conducted by US special troops, one of the leaders of ISIS was killed. The attack took place in a mountainous area in Northern Somalia and the victim, as reported by senior Pentagon and National Security Council officials in a briefing to journalists, is Bilal al-Sudani, one of the heads of the Islamic State in Horn of Africa.
No civilians and no American soldiers were injured or killed in the helicopter blitz. The main objective was the capture of Al-Sudani who was instead killed. The details of the operation have not been clarified, nor if and how many militiamen were killed or captured in the blitz.
Washington had Al-Sudani on its radar for several years, for about ten years he had become one of the American targets, but it is in recent months that intelligence information has allowed him to be located. The Department of Defense – in collaboration with other government agencies – has prepared a plan and last week on indications from Austin the options were brought to the table by President Biden who gave the go-ahead at the beginning of the week, underlining that the main objective was to capture the terrorist alive.
Sources did not explain what happened on the ground that led to the man’s death.
Washington warned the Somali government that it would lead the blitz and other partners were also alerted to the American operation.
A senior administration official underlined the double value of the raid which goes beyond the elimination of a terrorist but “must be placed in a broader context, that of the global war on terrorism”.
Analysts from the NSC and American intelligence maintain that the clash with Isis and Al Qaeda is still ongoing and active although the “geographical distribution is very different compared to twenty years ago”. This implies that the Americans cannot put men on the ground anywhere but the combination of intelligence, speed of execution, movement and training allows special troops to strike without necessarily maintaining a network of bases abroad.
This is what happened, for example, in the killing of the leadership of the Islamic State in Syria in 2022 and in the death of Ayman al Zawahiri, the right-hand man of Osama Bin Laden who had become the leader of Al Qaeda.
As reported by analysts, Al Sudani had a top role in the terrorist organization. He had started among al-Shabaab and soon became one of the main “collectors” of funds and money which he then sent to groups in the jihadist galaxy active in Syria and Afghanistan. The Americans explicitly mentioned the Khorasan group.
The recognition of an imminent danger that has not, however, been defined, also prompted the Americans to act. In the blitz, despite the death of Al-Sudani, valuable intelligence elements were collected, according to White House sources.