Al-Shabaab attacks Somali army base, claims dozens killed

Fighters from the al-Shabab group have attacked a base for African Union peacekeepers in southwestern Somalia, blasting their way into the compound and exchanging fire with peacekeepers, a Somali military official told Al Jazeera.

Somali and Kenyan military officials said fighters seized the Somali army base near the town of Ceel Cadde, about 550 km (340 miles) west of Mogadishu in a region near Kenya’s border.

“There was suicide attack followed by the fighting and it seems that the base was stormed”, Ahmed said.

A Shebab spokesman has claimed they killed 63 Kenyan troops in the pre-dawn raid, but news agency AFP has said the claim has not been verified.

About the Kenyan airstrikes, the spokesman said: “After the morning attack, we responded immediately, KDF fighter jets are bombarding key Al-Shabab bases in the area, killing around 100”.

Later in the day, the UN Security Council also condemned the attack and underscored its full support to AMISOM in delivering their mandate to reduce the threat posed by the terrorist group Al Shabaab and armed opposition groups in Somalia. While a Kenyan military statement made no reference to the number of dead, the BBC, quoting Al-Shabaab, put it at 60.

Al Shabab, fighting to overthrow Somalia’s internationally-backed government has launched a string of similar attacks.

On June 14 2015, at least 16 Al Shabaab militants were killed in a botched attack at a military camp in Baure, Lamu County.

One year prior to that, Al-Shabaab killed 65 people in a 24-hour period in and around Mpeketoni. The African Union confirmed an attack on its troops. It was behind an assault on a Nairobi shopping mall in September 2013 that killed 67 people and an attack on a university in Garissa, in northeastern Kenya, in April, that killed 147 people.

The African Union Mission in Somalia has deployed about 22,000 peacekeepers to help Somali government forces stabilize the country, which hasn’t had a functioning central administration since civil war erupted a quarter of a century ago.