Hiiraan Online
Tuesday May 23, 2017
Al Shabaab fighters at an unknown location. FILE PHOTO
Mogadishu (HOL) - The Somali National Army has killed at least 5 Al-Shabaab militants on Tuesday after a heavy gun battle in the Lower Shabelle region of southern Somalia.
Army spokesperson Mohamed Isse Mohamed said that one government soldier died in the battle. He said the army would continue its fight against Al-Shabaab.
"We killed 5 Al-Shabaab militants in the fighting today, they fled their dead bodies, we lost one soldier during the fighting with the militants. We will continue operations to eradicate them," Isse said.
Al-Shabaab has claimed that they killed 13 soldiers, a claim disputed my army officials who dismissed those reports as militant propaganda. Al Shabaab regularly inflates the number of casualties it inflicts during its operations.
There are no independent reports of casualties in this latest spate of violence in the Lower Jubba but at least one resident said that that death toll on both sides is higher.
Al-Shabaab militants have waged war on the internationally backed Federal Government of Somalia since being ousted from the capital in 2011. Since then, the insurgency group retreated into Somalia’s hinterland where they plan and execute guerilla operations against government and civilian installations.