The governor of Kenya’s Mandera County recently stated that Shabaab is controlling “over 50 percent’ of northern Kenya and “more than 60 percent” of Mandera. Kenyan authorities have quickly scrambled to contradict these claims.
Additionally, the US State Department will also designate three of the Houthis’ top leaders as global terrorists.
Shabaab killed several military officials in a suicide bombing today in Galkayo. This is just the latest in a renewed assassination campaign that has targeted a wide range of high profile Somali leaders this year.
Saraya al Mokhtar is now the second Bahraini militia to be designated as terrorists for ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Shabaab briefly occupied a Somali military base and its adjacent town yesterday following a major assault in central Somalia.
France has claimed it killed Bah Ag Moussa, an important JNIM commander, in a recent military raid in northern Mali. JNIM has not yet commented on the news.
In an interview with the Islamic State’s Al-Naba newsletter, Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, the leader of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, attempts to paint al Qaeda’s efforts in the region as rife with internal squabbles and disunity.
Both the Islamic State and its local affiliate, the Allied Democratic Forces, have linked yesterday’s prison break in DRC to a recent speech by the official Islamic State spokesman.
