A US military raid in Somalia ordered by President Joe Biden killed a key regional leader of the Islamic State group, Bilal al-Sudani, US officials said Thursday.

Sudani was killed during a gunfight after US troops descended on a mountainous cave complex in northern Somalia hoping to capture him, according to US officials.

Around 10 of Sudani’s Islamic State associates at the scene were killed, but there were no American casualties, the officials said.

The operation had been prepared over a period of months, with US forces rehearsing at a site built to replicate the terrain where Sudani was hiding.

Biden authorized the strike earlier this week after consulting with top defende, intelligence and security officials, the official said.

“On January 25, on orders from the president, the US military conducted an assault operation in northern Somalia that resulted in the death of a number of ISIS members, including Bilal al-Sudani,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a statement.

“Al-Sudani was responsible for fostering the growing presence of ISIS in Africa and for funding the group’s operations worldwide, including in Afghanistan,” Austin said.

From his mountain base in northern Somalia, he provided and coordinated funding for IS branches, not only in Africa but also Islamic-State Khorasan, the arm operating in Afghanistan, a US official said on condition of anonymity.

Ten years ago, before he joined the Islamic State, Sudani was involved in recruiting and training fighters for the extremist al-Shabaab movement in Somalia.

US aerial strikes in Somalia surged to dozens a year during 2017-2020, but also included two to four ground operations in each year.

Since Biden became president in 2021, the aerial strikes have fallen off, to just 16 in 2022, and no ground strikes have been recorded, according to data compiled by New America, a national security think tank.

With inputs from NDTV