Somalia Attack: Al-Shabab Attacks African Union Janale Base

More than 50 Burundian AU soldiers were killed in an al-Shabaab attack on a southern military base in June.

AMISOM was unable to confirm any casualty figures. There was no indication where the troops might have been taken.

“The Islamist group al-Shabab regularly sends suicide attacks against government convoys and aid workers in hotels in Somalia, but this was the second assault this summer through the gate of a military base”.

“The militants managed to overrun the base, killing dozens of Amisom troops”, Aden said.

Al-Shabaab said in a statement posted on the SomaliMeMo website that it killed 80 Amisom soldiers. “Reports that the base has been taken over and our weapons captured are false”, the AU peacekeeping force said on its Twitter feed, without giving details on casaulties. “Others swam into the [Shabelle] river and drowned. Whereas Amisom troops are fighting al Shabaab insurgents, Somali soldiers will be fighting in Yemen and the whole world has to know”, he said.

The AU mission in Somalia (AMISOM) said the base at Janale, manned by Ugandan troops, “came under attack from al-Shabaab militants” with the attackers using a “car loaded with explosives to trigger the attack” after which they engaged the soldiers in a gun battle. “Others might have escaped into the jungle”.

At one house, where a family was celebrating a wedding, the soldiers separated the men from the women and shot six adult men, according to the group. AMISOM forces and Somali troops have recaptured large parts of Somalia from the al-Qaida-linked militants in recent years, but attacks have continued.

Regardless of dropping most of its key strongholds in south and central Somalia, al-Shabab continues to hold out assaults on the federal government and African Union troops throughout the Horn of Africa nation. The militants also stage frequent suicide attacks inside the capital.