Tuesday July 21, 2026
Mogadishu (AX) — Somalia’s military, backed by international partners, has killed Moallim Jinaaw Ibrahim, a senior al-Shabab Shura Council member, in an airstrike following more than a year of intelligence work, Defense Minister Ahmed Moallim Fiqi said Tuesday.
At a Mogadishu news conference, Fiqi said the July 5, 2026 operation came after 14 months of intelligence collection and surveillance targeting the militant leader.
Fiqi said Moallim Jinaaw was struck in the Sabiyo area, located between the Afgooye and Basra districts of the Lower Shabelle region.
“The airstrike took place in the Sabiyo area, between the Afgooye and Basra districts of Lower Shabelle region, where the leader was targeted while he was in a hut in a field, while being guarded by al-Shabab militiamen,” Fiqi said.
The defense minister identified Moallim Jinaaw as one of al-Shabab’s founders and the ninth member of its Shura Council.
According to Fiqi, he was deeply involved in overseeing combat units, extorting money from civilians and coordinating the group’s military activities.
Fiqi said Moallim Jinaaw also served as a senior adviser and close confidant of al-Shabab leader Ahmed Diiriye, who is also known as Abu Ubaidah.
The minister accused him of abuses across the Bay, Bakool, Hiiraan and Galgaduud regions, including killings, the forced recruitment of children, seizing weapons from clans and repressing intellectuals.
Government officials confirmed his death after intelligence indicated that he had been killed in the strike, Fiqi said. The operation formed part of a wider campaign aimed at al-Shabab’s senior command structure.
Several prominent al-Shabab figures have been killed in recent years, Fiqi said, adding that operations will persist until the group’s leadership has been dismantled.
Fiqi praised the Somali National Army and the country’s security agencies, while thanking Somalia’s international partners for their support in the campaign against al-Shabab.
The al-Shabab Shura Council is the militant group’s top decision-making and central leadership body in Somalia. As a consultative executive body, it sets major strategic, administrative and religious policy and functions as a close advisory network for the group’s supreme leader, or emir.
