Qaeda commander killed in Somalia

Somali government forces have reportedly killed a senior al-Qaeda commander named Anwar Mohamed Abubakar during violent clashes with militants.

Abubakar, an Egyptian national, was reportedly killed in Mogadishu’s northern district on Monday as he was commanding a group of al-Shabab fighters in heavy clashes with government forces.

“They suffered heavy losses, but I can confirm the death of the al-Qaeda man from Egypt whose name is Anwar Mohamed Abubakar and the Somali terrorist commander Abdul Kader Abdi Hussein,” a spokesman for Ahlu Sunnah Wal-Jamaa that signed a power-sharing deal with the Somali government said.

The commander is the third senior al-Qaeda operative killed in Mogadishu over the past several months.

Earlier in February, government forces killed two senior al-Qaeda operatives named Amar Ibrahim originally from Jordan and Abu-Masa’ab al-Jaza’ir originally from Algeria.

The interim Somali government accuses al-Shabab fighters of having links with al-Qaeda.