Shebab claims slaughter of AU troops
Somali militants stage bomb, gun attacks
MOGADISHU: Al-Qaeda-backed Islamist insurgents yesterday claimed to have killed 63 Kenyan soldiers in an attack on an African Union (AU) military base in southwestern Somalia.
The militants also claimed to have captured the town of el-Adde near the border with Kenya.
Sheikh Abdul Aziz Abu Musab, a spokesman for the military wing of al-Shebab, made the claim on Radio Andalus, a pro-militant station that broadcasts via the internet from inside the capital, Mogadishu.
The attack is the biggest assault on an African Union base since a raid on an installation at Janaale in southern Somalia on Sept. 1.
The AU Mission in Somalia (Amisom) “can confirm that there was an attack on our troops in El-Adde” and more details will be released later, it said yesterday on its Twitter account.
Al-Shebab frequently exaggerates the number of troops they kill, while Amisom rarely gives exact tolls.
Kenya Defence Forces spokesman David Obonyo said the militants attacked a Somali National Army camp close to a Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) camp at 4am.
The KDF has “increased its military operations” against al-Shebab in a bid to contain the situation, and the number of casualties on both sides is still being calculated, he said.
“[Al-Shebab] launched an offensive on a military base at El-Adde and there was heavy fighting which caused casualties,” Somali army colonel Idris Ahmed said, adding that a suicide commando had blasted a way into the base in the far southwestern Gedo region, which borders Kenya and Ethiopia.
“There was a suicide attack followed by the fighting and it seems that the base was stormed,” Col Ahmed said.
Local elder Hussein Adam said he heard a huge explosion followed by intense gunfire for about 45 minutes, and that al-Shebab had overrun the base.
“We don’t know about the casualties, but people who went there saw many dead bodies strewn around,” he said, having spoken to those who went to the base.
Ahmed Hassan, speaking by phone from Elwak, a nearby town, said the attack started with a suicide car bomb, and then heavy gunfire was heard as militants stormed into the base.
Al-Shebab has waged an insurgency in Somalia since 2006 to impose its version of Islamic law.
It has used the country as a staging ground to carry out attacks in Kenya, East Africa’s largest economy, and Uganda.
While the militant group has lost territory since being driven out of Mogadishu in 2011 by government and AU forces, it continues to stage deadly gun and bomb attacks, including in the capital.
Amisom has deployed about 22,000 peacekeepers to help Somali government forces stabilise the country, which hasn’t had a functioning central administration since civil war erupted a quarter of a century ago.
Kenyan forces form part of the Amisom contingent, along with troops from Ethiopia, Burundi, Uganda and Djibouti.
In the attack on Janaale, the group claimed to have killed 80 AU soldiers.
Amisom said at the time it was verifying the number of casualties.
The mission is estimated to have lost at least 1,100 troops since 2009, the Nairobibased East African newspaper reported in September.
In yesterday’s raid, Abu Musab said the militants detonated a vehicle laden with explosives at the fence of the base in ElAdde and fired rocket-propelled grenades at the troops inside.
Equipment and ammunition were seized in the raid.
The battle lasted for about three hours as Kenya Defence Forces troops tried to repel the attack, before the base was overrun, Mohamed Isaq, a resident of El-Adde, said by phone from the town.