U.S. Navy SEALs carried out an overnight raid on the Somali seaside home of a leader of the al- Qaeda-linked group al-Shabab, U.S. officials said Saturday, an operation that suggests how worried Washington has become about the threat posed by an organization that recently launched an attack on a shopping mall in neighboring Kenya.
A U.S. official said the aim of the raid, which took place Friday, was to take a "high-value" al-Shabab militant into custody, but the militant was not seized.
"U.S. personnel took all necessary precautions to avoid civilian casualties and disengaged after inflicting some al-Shabab casualties," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a covert operation. "We are not in a position to identify those casualties."
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