Friday January 6, 2023
Mogadishu (HOL) - The U.S. announced a $10 million bounty on Thursday to capture an Al-Shabab leader in connection with a 2020
attack on a Kenyan air base that killed three Americans.
"The U.S. Department of State's Rewards for Justice (RFJ) program, which is administered by the Diplomatic Security Service, is offering a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction in any country of Maalim Ayman or any individual who committed, attempted, or conspired to commit, or aided or abetted in the commission of the January 5, 2020 terrorist attack on U.S. and Kenyan personnel at the Manda Bay Airfield in Kenya."
U.S. authorities believe Ayman was in charge of planning the January 2020 assault.
Maalim Ayman leads Jaysh Ayman, an al-Shabaab unit formed in 2013 to carry out operations inside Kenya. The faction is named after Maalim, who reportedly hails from Mandera county. The group has set up bases in the expansive woodlands of the Boni forest in Kenya's coastal Lamu County.
Two U.S. contractor pilots and a
U.S. Army specialist were killed in the attack, which also wounded a U.S. contractor and two other military personnel.
The U.S. State Department designated Ayman as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) in November 2020.
Al-Shabaab was classified as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) and Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) in March 2008.
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Edit: A previous photo accompanying this story purported to show Maalim Ayman. This needed to be corrected. The image was of a separate Al Shabaab member with a US bounty, Mohamoud Abdi Aden.