US offers $10 mn for ‘mastermind’ of 2019 Kenya hotel siege

Nairobi, Kenya (AFP):

The United States has announced a reward of up to $10 million for the “terror mastermind” of a bloody hotel attack in Kenya four years ago.

It said it was seeking information on Mohamoud Abdi Aden, describing him as a leader of the Somalia-based Al-Shabaab militant group that has carried out several deadly attacks in neighbouring Kenya.

The Al-Qaeda affiliated group claimed responsibility for the January 15, 2019 siege on the upmarket DusitD2 hotel compound in the Kenyan capital Nairobi that lasted almost 20 hours.

At least 21 people lost their lives, including a US citizen, and many more were injured. Kenya said at the time that all the assailants had been eliminated.

“Mohamoud Abdi Aden, an Al-Shabaab leader, was part of the cell that the planned the DusitD2 hotel attack,” the US ambassador to Kenya, Meg Whitman, told reporters in Nairobi.

She said the US was offering a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the arrest of Aden, described by the embassy as a Kenyan national, and others accused of involvement in the hotel siege.

The head of Kenya’s Directorate of Criminal Investigations, Amin Mohamed Ibrahim, described Aden as the “terror mastermind” behind the carnage.

The State Department designated Aden a “specially designated global terrorist” in October last year.

Al-Shabaab has repeatedly targeted Kenya since it sent its army into Somalia in October 2011 to fight the violent militant group.

Al-Shabaab has been waging a violent insurgency against Somalia’s fragile central government for 15 years.

The US termed it a ‘terrorist’ group in 2008 and has offered a bounty for the killing or arrest of its leaders.