MOGADISHU: Somalia’s Al Qaeda-linked Shebab extremists have killed two of their own top commanders, one with a $5m US bounty on his head, the insurgents said.
“We have informed their widows of their deaths, as they must now wear the clothes of mourning,” Shebab spokesman Abdulaziz Abu Musab said.
The pair killed are two co-founders of the Islamist group, including US-wanted Ibrahim Haji Jama Mead, better known by his nickname Al Afghani — “the Afghan” — due to his training and fighting with Islamist guerrillas there. Washington offered the $5m bounty for Afghani, who opposed the command of top Shebab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane.
Godane, who the US have offered $7m for, earlier this month ordered the arrest of Afghani and at least a dozen other leaders, according to security sources.
Shebab gunmen also killed Abul Hamid Hashi Olhayi, named as another senior commander and co-founder of the group. AFP
