Economy

Shabaab spy chief behind El-Adde attack killed, says KDF

kdf

KDF soldiers during a patrol in Somalia. PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE

An Al-Shabaab deputy commander said to be behind the El-Adde attack was killed in a Kenyan military strike in Somalia.
Mahad Mohammed Karatey, alias Mahat Karate, who was also the head of the Alamnyat, Al-Shabaab’s intelligence wing, was killed together with 10 middle-level commanders and 42 recruits in the airstrike on the Nadaris camp on February 8.

The US government had placed a $5 million bounty on the head of spy chief Mr Karate, with Kenya terming his death a “major blow” to the Al-Qaeda-linked group.

Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) spokesman Colonel David Obonyo said Karate had gone to the camp to preside over the graduation of an estimated 80 Alamnyat recruits, who had completed their training and were due for deployment to carry out more terrorist attacks.

“The Kenya Defence Forces, under African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) operations, would like to confirm that Mahad Mohammed Karate... and 10 other middle level commanders were killed in a major KDF strike,” in southern Somalia on February 8, Obonyo said.

“It is confirmed that 42 recruits were also killed while many others sustained injuries,” Col Obonyo added.

The claims could not be independently verified, and there was no immediate reaction from Al-Shabaab. But the 10-day delay in announcing Karate’s death suggests thorough efforts to identify the remains were carried out.

The military said it was believed Karate played a major role in the recent attack on KDF troops in El-Adde, Somalia, by deploying suicide bombers.

Kenyan officials have given no death toll from the storming of its base on January 10, but many suspect it to have been the country’s worst military disaster, with Al-Shabaab claiming to have killed more than 100 Kenyan soldiers.

READ: Uhuru pays tribute to Kenyan soldiers killed in Somalia

The Alamnyat is Al-Shabaab’s intelligence wing that comprises suicide bombers, assassins, explosives experts and information gatherers. Mr Karate is said to have been involved in plotting the 2015 massacre of 148 people at Garissa University.

Mr Karate was put on the US State Department’s wanted terrorist list in April 2015 after the Garissa attack, which followed the 2013 attack in the Kenyan capital when Al-Shabaab gunmen slaughtered at least 67 people at Nairobi’s Westgate Mall.

Mr Karate was also the deputy of former Al-Shabaab leader Ahmed Godane, killed in a US drone strike in September 2014.

Security sources believed Karate to be a key advocate of switching allegiance from Al-Qaeda to Islamic State, an ongoing and bloody debate within the Al-Shabaab

His death, if confirmed, could strengthen leader Ahmed Diriye’s efforts to remain part of Al-Qaeda. Last month the insurgents stormed a Kenyan army base at El-Adde in southwest Somalia, in the latest incident of an AMISOM base being overrun by the group.

Al-Shabaab is fighting to overthrow the internationally-backed government in Mogadishu, which is protected by 22,000 African Union troops.

Last week, the Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for a bomb attack which ripped a hole in a passenger plane shortly after takeoff from the capital Mogadishu earlier this month.