Washington (CNN) -- A pre-dawn raid by elite U.S. forces in southern Somalia, in the heart of territory controlled by the al Qaeda subsidiary Al-Shabaab, targeted an Al-Shabaab commander connected to one of the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings, a senior Obama administration official said Sunday. The suspected foreign fighter commander is named Ikrima, a Kenyan of Somali origin about whom little is known. The official said Ikrima is associated with two now-deceased al Qaeda operatives who played roles in the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, and the 2002 attacks on a hotel and airline in Mombasa, also in Kenya.
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NEW: Kenyan officials said Ikrima helped recruit Kenyans into Al-Shabaab
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The raid was led by members of SEAL Team Six, the unit that killed Osama bin Laden
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The SEALs withdrew because they came under fire, a U.S. official says
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Al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility for last month's Kenya mall attack
A recent Kenyan intelligence report alleged that Ikrima was behind several foiled terror conspiracies against targets in @placeholder between 2011 and 2013.