Story highlights Adan Garar, connected to the 2013 Westgate mall attack in Kenya, was riding in a vehicle that was struck from the air

He was killed in southwestern Somalia, the U.S. military said

(CNN) A key Al-Shabaab operative, who was connected to the Westgate mall attack in Kenya, was killed recently by a U.S. drone strike, the Pentagon announced Wednesday.

Adan Garar, a member of Al-Shabaab's intelligence and security wing, was killed Thursday in southwestern Somalia as he traveled in a vehicle, according to Pentagon news release.

Garar was responsible for "coordinating the terror group's external operations, which target U.S. persons and other Western interests in order to further al Qaeda's goals and objectives," the Pentagon said in the statement.

In September, Al-Shabaab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane was also killed in a U.S. airstrike near Barawe city.

Al-Shabaab has been blamed and taken responsibility for attacks on city streets, at markets, at prisons and a U.N. compound in Mogadishu.

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