Somali forces have killed a senior member of the militant group Al-Shabab believed to be responsible for orchestrating the Garissa University attack in Kenya.
Mohamed Kuno, who has several aliases including Mohamed Dulyadin, was one of 16 people killed in overnight raids on Tuesday in the port city of Kismayo in Somalia, the BBC reported, citing regional forces. The security minister in the Somali region of Jubaland confirmed Kuno's death at a press conference on Wednesday.
Al-Shabab gunmen entered Garissa University College on April 2, 2015, taking hundreds of students and staff hostage. The extremist group reportedly freed those who identified as Muslims while executing Christians. The militants killed 148 people in the attack, one of the deadliest in Kenyan history. The university only reopened in January, nine months after the attack.
Kuno was a Kenyan-Somali who was formerly a headmaster at an Islamic school in Garissa before he crossed into Somalia in 2007 to join the Union of Islamic Courts, a precursor to the Al-Qaeda-aligned Al-Shabab. The Kenyan government issued a $215,000 reward for his capture following the Garissa attack.
Al-Shabab has launched regular suicide bombings and gun attacks in Somalia in 2016. The group also attacked an African Union base manned by Kenyan soldiers in El Adde, in Somalia's Gedo region, in January. The Kenyan government refused to put a death toll on the attack but Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said that as many as 200 Kenyan soldiers may have died in the siege.
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Conor is a staff writer for Newsweek covering Africa, with a focus on Nigeria, security and conflict.
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