The United States has announced that it is offering up to $10 million for information leading to the arrest of a man believed to be the “terrorist mastermind” behind a 2019 attack on a hotel in Kenya that caused the death of 21 people, including an American.
The U.S. is looking for Mohamoud Abdi Aden, whom it considers a leader of al-Shabaab, a Somalia-based Islamist group that has carried out several bloody attacks in neighbouring Kenya.
The group claimed responsibility for the 15 January 2019 attack on the posh DusitD2 hotel in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Twenty-one people were killed during the siege of the hotel, which lasted about 20 hours. Kenyan authorities indicated at the time that all the attackers were killed.
U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Meg Whitman told reporters in Nairobi that Mohamoud Abdi Aden was part of the cell that planned the attack on the DusitD2 hotel. She added that the US is offering a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the arrest of Aden, believed to be a Kenyan national, and others involved in the siege of the hotel.
Kenyan intelligence chief Amin Mohamed Ibrahim called Aden the “terrorist mastermind” of the attack.
Al-Shabaab has carried out several attacks in Kenya since the country sent its army into Somalia in October 2011 to fight the radical Islamist group.
