U.S. kills Somali Islamist leader

MOGADISHU, Somalia – A leading militant accused of having ties with al-Qaida was killed early Thursday in a U.S. military airstrike on a small central town, potentially slowing an Islamist insurgency that’s been raging for more than a year in Somalia.

Aden Hashi Ayro, a slight, Afghanistan-trained fighter believed to be in his early 30s, led the militant group known as al-Shabab – “the youth” – which last month was added to the U.S. list of terrorist organizations because of its alleged ties to al-Qaida. Sheik Muhktar Robow, a spokesman for the militant group, confirmed Ayro’s death.

Lt. Joe Holstead of the U.S. Central Command said the military had carried out an attack on “a known al-Qaida target and militia leader” near the town of Dusamareb in central Somalia, about 300 miles north of the capital, Mogadishu. Another U.S. official with knowledge of the operation confirmed that Ayro was killed. The pre-dawn strike, which residents said killed more than a dozen other people, was the fourth time in 16 months that the U.S. military has bombarded reputed Islamist hideouts in Somalia. But it would be the first time that a strike netted a major U.S. target.

Ayro developed a reputation as one of the most dangerous men in East Africa as the leader of al-Shabab, the militant wing of an Islamic fundamentalist movement that took over Mogadishu in 2006 and imposed religious law.

U.S. officials charge that Ayro provided protection for al-Qaida operatives who carried out the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which left more than 220 people dead, and the 2002 car bombing of a Kenyan resort hotel frequented by Israeli tourists.