MOGADISHU (SD) – In a joint operation on December 10, 2025, international partners and Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) conducted an airstrike in Jilib town, Middle Jubba region.

The strike killed two senior Al-Shabaab commanders: Abdullahi Osman Mohamed (Ismail Engineer) and Abdikarim Mohamed Hirsi (Qoorleex).

Ismail Engineer held two key positions: head of the group’s Explosives Office and head of Al-Shabaab’s media operations. At the start of 2025, he was additionally assigned leadership of the group’s intelligence wing.

He was also among the closest associates of the group’s emir, Ahmed Diriye. The engineer assumed leadership of the Explosives Office after an airstrike killed its former head, Ibrahim Ali Abdi (Anta Anta), in October 2013. He had taken over the media operations wing even earlier.

Ismail Engineer is remembered as the mastermind behind the targeted assassinations of journalists, with Hasan Hanafi as the primary executor. He is also notorious for orchestrating the Sobe1 and Sobe2 bombings and other major attacks between 2013 and 2025. His expertise was in electrical engineering and journalism. In June 2023, the United States placed a $5 million bounty on his head.

Qoorleex was also a key figure in the media wing, working directly under the Engineer. A year earlier, in December 2024, an airstrike killed Mohamed Mire, who served as the spokesman for the group’s regional governors and acted as the de facto “minister of interior.”

Nevertheless, despite Ismail Engineer’s 12-year tenure leading the explosives and media operations, NISA ultimately succeeded in eliminating him. The group appears to have lost critical senior figures as it enters a challenging phase.

The elimination of Ismail Engineer represents one of the most significant counterterrorism victories in Somalia in recent years. As the dual head of explosives (operations) and media (propaganda), he was a unique “hybrid” commander whose loss cripples Al-Shabaab in two critical domains simultaneously. This is not just the loss of a senior figure; it’s the removal of the chief architect of complex attacks and the group’s primary narrative-shaper, dealing a devastating blow to both its operational capability and its ideological outreach.

The successful strike, credited to collaboration between NISA and “international partners” (implicitly the U.S.), highlights the enduring efficacy of the “by, with, and through” model and “over-the-horizon” counterterrorism. It demonstrates that despite the drawdown of ground forces, precise intelligence fusion and stand-off strike capabilities remain lethal. This success will be used to justify continued international military and intelligence support for the FGS.

Al-Shabaab’s strength has long been the synergy between its military operations and its sophisticated media machine. The engi embodied this nexus. His removal disrupts the feedback loop between violence and messaging. The group will struggle to find a single successor with his rare combination of technical bomb-making expertise and media savvy, likely forcing a fragmentation of these critical portfolios and reducing efficiency.

This strike is part of a pattern. The deaths of Anta Anta (2013), Mohamed Mire (2024), and now Engineer and Qoorleex indicate a sustained, successful campaign against Al-Shabaab’s middle and upper management. While the group’s top leadership (Ahmed Diriye) remains elusive, this “death by a thousand cuts” strategy erodes its institutional knowledge, operational continuity, and command-and-control resilience, pushing it toward a more fragmented, less capable structure.

History shows that Al-Shabaab is resilient and adaptive. The loss of such a pivotal figure may lead to tactical and organizational evolution. The group could decentralize its bomb-making and media operations further, making them harder to target. A period of heightened retaliation is also highly likely, as the group will seek to demonstrate resilience and avenge its leaders, potentially through high-profile attacks in urban centers.

While the killing of a $5M-bounty figure is a morale booster for Somali and international security forces, its impact on Al-Shabaab’s rank-and-file is complex. It may cause temporary demoralization and disruption. However, the group’s ideology often martyrs slain leaders, using their deaths for recruitment propaganda. The key will be whether the FGS and its partners can exploit this leadership vacuum with coordinated ground offensives to seize and hold territory, converting a tactical victory into strategic momentum.

The Jilib airstrike is a major operational triumph that strikes at the heart of Al-Shabaab’s capability to wage both physical and psychological war. It validates the current counterterrorism model but does not spell the group’s demise.

The true measure of success will be whether Somali security forces can capitalize on this moment of enemy disarray to degrade territorial control and disrupt recruitment networks, thereby transforming a significant tactical win into a lasting strategic advantage. The coming weeks will reveal whether Al-Shabaab is truly entering a “challenging phase” or if it will, as it has before, reorganize and return with deadly determination.