The US Department of Defense (Pentagon) announced yesterday the killing of a prominent leader of the youth movement, Yusuf Jayyis, in an air strike, launched by the American forces last Thursday in southern Somalia, about 217 km west of the capital Mogadishu.
The US military command in Africa, known simply as AFRICOM, explained that it launched an air strike on a site near the town of "Bush Medina", killing three of the youth movement, one of them was Yusuf Jayyis, one of the founders of the movement linked to Al Qaeda, and who took leadership positions in the movement. .
And the statement of the US military command in Africa quoted the commander of "AFRICOM" General Stephen Townsend as saying that Geis "was violent, cruel and responsible for the loss of many innocent lives, and that eliminating it makes Somalia and neighboring countries more secure."
A desire to freeze operations
"While we want to freeze our operations in Somalia due to the emerging Corona virus, the leaders of al-Qaeda, youth and the Islamic State see this crisis as an opportunity to strengthen their terrorist agendas, so we will continue to stand by and support our African partners," General Townsend added.
The director of operations in "Africom", William Gailer, said that Al-Shabaab is still a security threat to Somalia, and is seeking to spill more blood inside and outside Somalia.
The US military launched another air strike last Monday in the Jilib region in southern Somalia, in which five other elements of al-Shabab were killed.
It is noteworthy that the youth movement, which was founded in 2004, pledged to overthrow the Somali government backed by the international community, supported by an African Union military force, and after the movement's defeat in 2011 from the Somali capital, it lost its most important strongholds but still controlled large rural areas Chen Including attacks and suicide attacks.