Several dead as Al Shabab storm African Union base in Somalia

Government officials and military officers were tight lipped on the number of Kenyan soldiers killed or who went missing during the attack described as the worst since Kenya sent its troops to the neighbouring country to fight the Al Shabaab insurgency. If the death toll is confirmed, it would be the highest number of casualties Kenya’s military has suffered in a single incident since its troops invaded southern Somalia in October 2011.

“This attack will not rest unanswered”, she said.

A Kenyan soldier, who Kenya Defence Forces said was injured in the attack by al-Shabab in Somalia earlier this week, is carried on a stretcher from the airplane to a waiting ambulance after being airlifted back to Nairobi for medical treatment, in Kenya Sunday, Jan. 17, 2016.

Calls for the Kenyan President, Uhuru Kenyatta, to withdraw the Kenyan forces from Somalia, have been futile as he believes that the troops are protecting Kenya.

He made the claim on Radio Andalus, a pro- militant station that broadcasts via the internet in the capital, Mogadishu.

He urged Kenyans to remember the affected families in their prayers and stay as brothers, noting that soldiers who lost their lives left behind their families and sacrificed their lives to protect every Kenyan citizen.

Guber, however, says the key lesson from the El-Adde attack is examining the relationship between the locals and AMISOM forces, with a view toward building a local military force that shoulders the security operations.

“We will fight them deep in their hideouts, smoke them out of the caves, follow them to the end in honour of every drop of blood of fellow Kenyans”, said he.

“With our allies, we will continue in Somalia to fulfill our mission”, he said in Friday’s comments.

“They 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 a Shebab suicide commando blasted a way into the base in the far southwestern Gedo region, which borders Kenya and Ethiopia.

A Kenyan army unit reportedly decimated in an attack by al-Shabab militants last Friday had received warning of the assault, according to a Somali general.