Islamic terrorist group al-Shabaab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane was targeted in a US drone strike overnight as he left a meeting of the group’s leadership.  al-Shabaab, which is linked to al Qaeda (remember them?), recently carried out a car bombing in Mogadishu that killed a police chief and other officers.

The [Somali] official said that the strike took place in a forest near Sablale district, 105 miles south of Mogadishu, where the group trains its fighters. The governor of Somalia’s Lower Shabelle region, Abdiqadir Mohamed Nor, told The Associated Press that as government and African Union forces were heading to a town in Sablale district, they heard something that sounded like an “earthquake” as drones struck al-Shabaab bases.

“There was an airstrike near Sablale, we saw something,” Nor said.

Why does the US care about some group in Somalia?  The answer is found in a 2011 report from the House Committee on Homeland Security.  al-Shabaab is the premier Somali Islamic terrorist group, and has been actively recruiting Somalis here in the US, especially in areas of high concentrations of Somali immigrants, such as in Minneapolis and Seattle.  They’ve been quite busy—and enjoy far more support in the US than you might think. They’ve committed many other acts in the last few years, including threatening the US directly in 2008.  Naturally, at that time the Democrats said al-Shabaab was not a threat.

Shabaab-related federal indictments account for the largest number and significant upward trend in homegrown counterterrorism cases filed by the Department of Justice over the past two years. At least 38 cases have been unsealed since 2009 in Minnesota, Ohio, California, New Jersey, New York, Illinois, Missouri, Alabama, Virginia and Texas.

Just another peaceful group in a peaceful religion, right?  Cue Obama in a jacket hastily thrown over his golf shirt, while he brags that he took out the whole network personally.