DailyMail.com can reveal that last weekend’s air strike in Somalia killed an ISIS leader believed to be responsible for recruiting terrorists for operations in the West.
He was named as Ahmed Maeleminine, a senior ISIS recruiter, financer, and external operations leader.
‘This man has recruited terrorists from around the world, trained them to kill innocents, and deployed them back into the West to execute Jihadi attacks in more than one nation,’ said Sebastian Gorka, Trump’s senior director for counterterrorism.
Somalia has been a haven for terrorists ever since its government collapsed in 1991, replaced by a patchwork of feuding warlords and hardline Islamists.
In recent years, the country’s Islamic State branch has grown in influence, sending money around the globe and plotting international attacks.
Gorka said Maeleminine was well known to American intelligence agencies.
‘As President Trump pointed out in his viral post on the operation, our people had been tracking and surveilling Maeleminine for a very long time but the Biden Administration repeatedly refused to take any action against this Jihadi mastermind,’ he said.
Details of the operation were first revealed by Trump last Saturday, when he posted video of the strike on Somalia.
Some 16 F-18s delivered their payloads at 9:50am on Saturday, striking ISIS leaders in caves in the Golis Mountains in Puntland, a semi-autonomous region in Somalia
‘These killers, who we found hiding in caves, threatened the United States and our Allies,’ he posted on Truth Social.
‘The strikes destroyed the caves they live in, and killed many terrorists without, in any way, harming civilians.’
It was the result of a busy 36 hours at the White House, as officials sought approval for the strike and then monitored the results.
Gorka and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz presented Trump with their intelligence in the Oval Office on Thursday.
‘We presented a briefing on the severity of the threat Maeleminine posed and the cave complex he was hiding in in Northern Somalia, plus the fact that the Biden White House has refused to do anything about him,’ he said.
‘The president immediately green lit the operation with a stroke of his iconic black Sharpie felt pen.’
The order was transmitted to operational command and ‘the mightiest military in the world was finally unleashed to do its job once more,’ said Gorka.
His team and Waltz assembled on Saturday morning to monitor the strike.
The raid targeted Ahmed Maeleminine, a senior ISIS recruiter, and external operations leader
An F-18 is seen before taking off from the USS Harry S. Truman in a photo supplied on Feb 1 by U.S. Africa Command. 16 took part in the mission
Sebastian Gorka, Trump’s senior director for counterterrorism, and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz briefed the president on Thursday before he gave the go-ahead
Trump signed the order with his famous Sharpie pen. (He is seen here in the Oval Office on the same day, Thursday Jan 30) signing an executive order
At 9:50 am 16 F-18s delivered their payload on the cave complex in the semi-autonomous Somali region of Puntland.
Officials said the Super Hornets flew from the Harry S. Truman operating in the Red Sea.
And locals reported seeing flames reaching into the sky from at least seven explosions. .
‘The strikes targeted about 10 locations in the Cal-Miskaad areas, most of them caves, and we believe that many of the militants were killed,’ General Adan Abdi Hashi, commander of the Puntland Devish Forces, told Voice of America.
His forces launched an operation late last year to drive militants, many of them foreigners, from the mountains.
Saturday’s strike was the first ordered by Trump since being sworn in as commander in chief for the second time.
‘With Biden’s surrender of Afghanistan and the collapse of Damascus, we have seen a recrudescence of Global Jihadism, especially in Africa,’ said Gorka.
‘Bad actors who wish to do us harm have been allowed to retrench and expand, and yes Northern Somalia has become a new stronghold for ISIS.
ISIS rose to international prominence during the 2010s, particularly in Syria and Iraq, but now its presence is mainly restricted to parts of Africa. Pictured: ISIL fighters raising their weapons as they stand on a vehicle mounted with the trademark Jihadist flag at an undisclosed location in the Anbar province
Trump, 78, took to X on Saturday to say that the American military ‘will find and kill’ all members of the terrorist group ‘who would attack Americans’
‘That all changed at 1201 January 2025 as President Trump once more became our Commander-in-Chief and America is now back.’
ISIS has looked to find new havens ever since it lost control of its heartland in Iraq and Syria.
Its Somali branch has taken on a greater role amid reports that its leader Abdulkadir Mumin had assumed global control of the movement.
The Somali government welcomed the strike as a ‘critical step’ in the fight against terrorism.
‘The Federal Government of Somalia welcomes the firm and decisive counterterrorism efforts led by the United States,’ it said.
‘Together, we will continue to dismantle extremist networks … and build a future free from the scourge of terrorism.’