Al-Shabaab in attack on Kenya forces

Somalia military base rammed

ISLAMIST Shabaab fighters attacked a Kenyan military base in southern Somalia yesterday in their latest assault on foreign and national army outposts.

The attack on the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) base at Kolbiyow, close to the Kenyan border in Somalia’s Lower Juba region, began with suicide truck bombers blasting their way into the camp, followed by militants attacking from different directions.

Shabaab claimed in a statement to have overrun the base, captured military vehicles and equipment and to have killed scores of Kenyan soldiers.

KDF spokesman Paul Njuguna denied the base had been overrun, but gave no casualty figures.

Shabaab frequently overstates the death toll from its attacks while Kenya commonly underplays its losses.

A spokesman for al-Shabaab claimed its fighters killed at least 66 Kenyans at the base. He added al-Shabaab had lost fighters but did not give numbers.

Kenyan military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Njuguna said KDF soldiers “repulsed the terrorists, killing scores”.

Njuguna said the attack was launched around dawn yesterday.

Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al-Shabaab’s military operation spokesman, had told reporters that fighters had rammed two suicide car bombs into the base and seized it.

“We are pursuing the Kenyan soldiers who ran away into the woods,” he said.

Al-Shabaab typically rams the entrance to a target site with a car or truck bomb so fighters can storm in.

The Islamist group, which once ruled much of Somalia, wants to topple the Western-backed government in Mogadishu and drive out the peacekeeping force made up of soldiers from Kenya, Djibouti, Uganda, Ethiopia and other African countries.

It has been fighting for years to impose its strict interpretation of Islam on Somalia. — Reuters