SUNDAY TIMES WEB DESK: A witness said a 4×4 vehicle was hit by several missiles 3 km (2 miles) outside the village of Xiriiro in the Qandala hills at 1 p.m. (1000 GMT) on Sunday.

“Today’s air strike killed Abdihakim Dhuqub, the deputy leader of Islamic State,” Puntland’s security minister, Abdisamad Mohamed Galan, told media.

He later defected to Islamic State.

Somalia has been riven by civil war – though more in the south than in the north where Puntland is – since 1991 when clan warlords overthrew a dictator before turning on each other.