“There was a gun battle between al-Amriki and his men and other fighters,” Moalim Ali, a resident in Bardhere village, told the AFP news agency.
Another resident, Mohamed Wardhere, said: “Al-Amriki and two other fighters, one of them a foreigner, have been killed near Bardhere.”
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The two men were allies of veteran Somali Islamist, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who split from al-Shabab in June.
He is currently in the custody of the UN-backed government.
BBC Somali analyst Mohamed Mohamed says al-Shabab has been hunting down and killing allies of Mr Aweys since the split.
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