The US military carried out a drone strike targeting al-Shabab in Somalia on Monday, a US official told AFP, as witnesses said a car belonging to the militants was destroyed.
Witnesses reported that there were casualties from the strike on the vehicle, which was carrying "at least three" people including senior members of the Islamist group when it was hit.
The strike comes weeks after an audacious attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi claimed by al-Shabab in which at least 67 people were killed.
"We are getting that a missile struck one of the Shabab vehicles near Jilib," south of the capital Mogadishu, local resident Abdi Moalim told AFP by telephone.
"Some people who stayed near the area told us it was an aerial bombardment targeting a vehicle," he said, adding that the vehicle was carrying "at least three" people.
Another resident who spoke on condition of anonymity said he heard an explosion and the sound of a plane overhead.
"We don't know who was killed but I can confirm that there was an attack, aircraft sounded over the sky and a few minutes later a heavy explosion followed. No one can dare go to check what happened, the Shabab will kill you," he said.
The American official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that the missile was a drone strike conducted by the US army.
The source did not specify where the drone was launched, but the US army operates the devices from bases in Dijbouti and Arba Minch in southern Ethiopia.
No Shabab members could immediately be reached for comment.
The latest strike follows a raid by US Navy SEALS on the southern port of Barawe in early October that failed to hit its alleged target: a senior Shabab militant leader and Kenyan of Somali origin called Abdulkadir Mohamed Abdulkadir, also known as Ikrima.
The Shabab have been driven out of Somalia's major towns, including the capital Mogadishu and the key southern port of Kismayo, by a UN-mandated African Union force that now numbers 17,700 men.
However the group still controls large swathes of southern Somalia and has over the past few months stepped up the scale of its suicide attacks.
