Dozens die as militants strike in Somalia

Friday January 15, 2016

Al Shabaab militants say they have taken over a Somalian army base, about 550km west of Mogadishu.

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Al Shabaab and government forces have battled for control of a remote army base in Somalia, after fighters from the Islamist militant group said they attacked the compound, killing dozens of soldiers.

The group, which is aligned with al Qaeda, said it took over the base, about 550km west of Mogadishu after a suicide bomber from the group rammed its gates. It said it was also in control of the small town of Ceel Cado nearby.

It said it killed 61 Kenyan soldiers serving as part of the African Union forces, while other soldiers escaped. The claim could not be independently verified.

In the past, al Shabaab has inflated casualty figures while Kenyan government officials have played them down.

A spokesman for Kenya's Defence Forces (KDF) said al Shabaab fighters overran a Somalia National Army camp situated close to a second camp run by Kenya Defence forces.

"(Kenyan) troops under (African Union auspices) counter-attacked ... The fighting is still going on ... and the number of casualties on both sides is unknown," Colonel David Obonyo, KDF spokesman, said in a statement.

Al Shabaab said it was in control of Ceel Cado and had captured nearly 30 lorries, tanks and armoured vehicles.

"We have now counted and gathered in the base 61 dead bodies of (Kenyan) soldiers," Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab's military operations spokesman, told Reuters. "The entire town and the base are in our hands."

African Union troops, comprising about 22,000 soldiers from several African nations, have spent nearly a decade battling al Shabaab insurgents in Somalia, a country mired in conflict since civil war broke out in 1991.

Al Shabaab has in the past year staged multiple attacks against African Union bases in Somalia, part of a guerilla-warfare strategy to drive out foreign troops and impose its harsh version of Islamic law across the Horn of Africa nation.

A shopkeeper in the town said soldiers from the African Union force, known as AMISOM, appeared to have left the town.

"We see al Shabaab in every corner of town," shopkeeper Abdullahi Iidle told Reuters. "Some residents have fled."

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