Elders protest after Somali troops kill extremists

MOGADISHU: Somali officials said they had killed eight extremist fighters during an operation, denying claims from local elders that they had shot civilians dead, two of them children.

Somali community leaders accused the troops, accompanied by US military advisers, of having killing the nine civilians in the operations.

An initial government statement said its troops had come under fire from terrorists while on patrol, insisting that no civilians had been killed.

A later statement acknowledged that there had been civilian casualties, in what the government seemed to suggest was a separate incident. They did not say who was responsible.

Somali troops and their “international partners” had come under attack early Friday at a farm near Bariire, in the Lower Shabelle region, the first government statement said.

“The individuals shooting at the SNA (Somali National Army) soldiers were Al-Shabab fighters; they were not farmers,” a brigade commander said in the statement.

“Our security forces go to great lengths to prevent civilian casualties during all of our activities,” the Information Ministry statement added.

But local elders called a news conference in Mogadishu and displayed nine bodies, two of them children, saying they were civilians killed in cold blood by Somali troops.

“The American forces and members from the Somali troops executed nine civilians by gun and as you can see all of them have gunshots,” said one of the elders, Abdul Elmi.