The Pentagon said on Monday the US killed a senior leader of the al-Shabaab extremist group last week, in an airstrike in Somalia.

The spokesman also said the US had confirmed that a 13 November airstrike killed a senior Islamic State leader in Libya known as Abu Nabil.

The strike on 2 December that killed three was announced by a Pentagon spokesman, who identified the targeted al-Shabaab senior leader as Abdirahman Sandhere and said he was also known as Ukash.

Al-Shabaab, an Islamic extremist group, is responsible for numerous attacks in east Africa, particularly Kenya.

US officials had said shortly after the Libya attack that Nabil likely had died. By coincidence that airstrike, carried out by F-15 aircraft on a compound in the city of Derna, happened just as the Paris terrorist attacks were under way.