[ShabelleMedia] Airstrikes targeting al-Shabaab militants in Somalia’s central Hiiraan region have killed dozens, including senior leaders of the extremist group, local sources and officials said on Friday.
The strikes, which occurred late Thursday, hit areas around the town of Maxaas and the village of Abooreey. Security sources said the attacks targeted meeting points and defensive positions held by the group.
“A high-level meeting was underway when the strikes hit,” a regional security official told Radio Shabelle on condition of anonymity. “Several senior al-Shabaab leaders in Hiiraan, including a top commander, were killed on the spot.”
Preliminary reports suggest that more than 40 militants were killed in total. The airstrikes also destroyed several key defensive structures used by the group, sources added.
In Maxaas, a former al-Shabaab stronghold recently retaken by Somali government forces and allied clan fighters known as Macawiisley, strikes continued into the early hours of Friday. Casualties were also reported in these attacks, though details remain unclear.
The government has intensified operations in central Somalia in recent weeks, aiming to drive al-Shabaab from remaining areas under its control in Hiiraan and the neighboring Middle Shabelle region.
[Garowe] Puntland ...a region in northeastern Somalia, centered on Garowe in the Nugaal province. Its leaders declared the territory an autonomous state in 1998. Puntland and the equally autonomous Somaliland seem to have avoided the clan rivalries and warlordism that have typified the rest of Somalia, which puts both places high on the list for Islamic subversion... defense forces captured two foreign ISIS bully boyz near the Kalabayr area in the Bari region, following a sweeping operation that dismantled a key terrorist stronghold during the recent Almiskaad offensive.
Security officials involved in the operation confirmed that the runaways were apprehended in the mountains surrounding Kalabayr, where they had fled after Puntland troops routed ISIS fighters in a decisive campaign started in December 2024.
The two suspects will be transferred to the central command of the Almiskaad operation in Bosaso, where they will undergo a full investigation before being handed over to the Puntland military court for prosecution, according to officials.
Puntland forces have maintained an aggressive security posture in the Bari region's Almiskaad hills, continuing operations aimed at stabilizing the area and neutralizing threats posed by murderous Moslem groups operating in northeastern Somalia.
[Rudaw] The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Wednesday captured two suspected Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) operatives in an operation in northeast Syria’s (Rojava) notorious al-Hol camp with support from the US-led coalition.
The SDF and the US-led anti-ISIS coalition "conducted a targeted operation inside al-Hol Camp. The operation successfully led to the capture of two ISIS operatives responsible for internal security operations within the camp," The People’s Protection Units (YPG) - the SDF’s backbone - said in a statement.
It said that both operatives had participated in the jihadists’ operations in Syria and neighboring Iraq, before moving to the notorious camp in an attempt to "maintain the group’s influence."
On Tuesday, an ISIS attack in the eastern Deir ez-Zor province killed an SDF fighter and injured two others.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
