The United States State Department has listed two Kenyan leaders of Al-Shabaab as "specially designated global terrorists".

The targeting of Ahmad Iman Ali and Abdifatah Abubakar Abdi is intended to deny them resources needed to plan and carry out attacks inside Kenya as well as in Somalia.

Ali has directed Shabaab's Kenyan operations for the past six years and is believed to be responsible for hundreds of deaths.

The State Department says Ali coordinated the January 2016 attack on a Kenya military base in El Adde, Somalia, that ranks as the worst military defeat in Kenyan history.

Read more: All Africa