[BUSINESSWEEK] For the second time in six years, there's a vacancy at the top of the radical Islamist al-Shabaab... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
group in Somalia after a U.S.
The Pentagon yesterday confirmed the death of Ahmed Abdi Godane, 37, who led the group since U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles killed his predecessor, Aden Hashi Ayro, in May 2008.
Just as Godane replaced Ayro, there may be another al-Shabaab leader ready to step up, limiting the operational setback for the al-Qaeda affiliate that was declared a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department in 2008. The U.S. had offered a $7 million reward for help locating Godane, who grabbed credit for the attack last year on the Westgate shopping mall in Kenya's capital of Nairobi, in which at least 67 people died.