also, a u.s. official says he does not believe any s.e.a.l.s were killed in that mission. we do not know exactly what happened to the al shabaab leader as well. al shabaab works as the proxy in kenya. u.s. special forces captured an al qaeda operative wanted for the 1998 bombings of u.s. embassies in kenya and tanz ani. abu anas al libi has topped the u.s. most wanted list for years. officials have wanted al libi to face trial in an american court. he joined al qaeda soon after its founding. straight first to barbara starr, our pentagon correspondent. she is working her sources at the pentagon and has the latest on these two major operations here. let s talk about what happened in somalia first. so, when did this commando raid take place and tell us who the
the navy s.e.a.l.s had to withdraw before they confirmed he was killed because they were under fire. a u.s. official does not believe any s.e.a.l.s were killed. al shabaab works as al qaeda ease proxy in kenya. that s important to point out. so that said, i want to get to peter bergen. he joins me now from washington. al shabaab works as a proxy to al qaeda in that region. tell us about that. well, even more than a patriotproxy, don, al shabaab is really a wholly owned subsidiary of al qaeda. they ve had a relationship with al qaeda going back several years, but last year, they formally announced a merger of the two groups, so call it an affiliate so to underestimate the relationship between them and we saw with the attack on the mall in kenya, that this is a group that has adopted al
leader. barbara, what do you have? well, don, an extraordinary development late tonight. the pentagon has just issued an official confirmation about an operation in somalia. i don t remember them talking about anything like this quite so publicly. issuining this statement. from the pentagon press secretary saying quote, i can confirm that yesterday, october 4th, u.s. military personnel were involved in a counterterrorism operation against a known al shabaab terrorist. we are not prepared to provide additional detail at this time, but separately from this, a sus official also commenting and saying that indeed, the u.s. personnel, we know those were us navy s.e.a.l.s in that town in somalia, quote, took all necessary precautions to avoid civilian casualties in this operation and disengaged after inflicting some al shabaab
qaeda s id yol ji. the reason they attracted the mall was not because it was kenyan, but because it attracted a fair number of businessmen and others living in nairobi. so, if you weaken one, do you weaken the other? if you carry out a major operation on al shabaab and it s successful, does it affect al qaeda and vice versa? to some degree, maybe. clearly, al shabaab is a group that has dwoadopted the id yol willing to attack targets where westerners are congregating and undermining it would be useful, but these groups also have affiliates in many other countries in africa and as we ve seen, an al qaeda leader was also captured within the last 24 hours in another african country, which is libya.
determine whether or not they were able to kill the man. no s.e.a.l.s as far as we know, injured in the attack. not clear yet the level of damage in the town. the number of somalis or al shabaab fighters. a very fuzzy picture, but a clear indication there was a great deal of hostility on the ground when they engaged in this fire fight. the information, this that happened in libya, came in earlier today and now, we re getting bits and pieces about the actual confirmation, that al libi has been captured and then also now, this latest one that that happened this somalia, details are coming in about that and we expect more moment by moment. we do. we expect more details in the coming hours and perhaps over the next couple of days. the move to get anas al libi,