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AU troops battle Shabaab after Somalia Army base overrun

"The SNA camp was overrun and the KDF troops under AMISOM counterattacked in support of SNA"/FILE

“The SNA camp was overrun and the KDF troops under AMISOM counterattacked in support of SNA”/FILE

MOGADISHU, Jan 15 – Somalia’s Al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab militants stormed an African Union base Friday, the Somali army said, with witnesses reporting several dead.

“They launched an offensive on a military base at El-Added and there was heavy fighting which caused casualties,” Somali army colonel Idris Ahmed said, adding a Shabaab suicide commando blasted a way into the base in the far southwestern Gedo region, which borders Kenya and Ethiopia.

Both Somali troops and Kenyan soldiers with the AU force, AMISOM, are deployed at that base.

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

Shabaab spokesman Shabaab spokesman Abdiaziz Abu Musab claimed to have killed 63 Kenyan troops in the pre-dawn attack, but this could not be immediately verified.

“The mujahedeen fighters carried out a successful operation this morning on a military base at El-Adde, and they have killed many of the Christian soldiers from Kenya,” Musab said. “We have counted 63 dead bodies inside the base.”

The Shabaab frequently exaggerates the number of troops they kill, while AMISOM rarely gives exact tolls.

Kenya’s army said Friday morning fighting was ongoing, and insisted that it was the Somali army base next door to its camp that was seized.

“Al-Shabaab militia attacked… the KDF troops under AMISOM counterattacked, the fighting is still going on,” said Kenya army spokesman David Obonyo.

Local elder Hussein Adam said he heard a huge explosion followed by intense gunfire for about 45 minutes, and that the Shabaab had overrun the base.

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“We don’t know about the casualties, but people who went there saw many dead bodies strewn around,” he said, having spoken to those who went to the base.

The Shabaab, fighting to overthrow Somalia’s internationally-backed and AU-protected government, has launched a string of similar attacks.

In September 2015, Shabaab fighters stormed a Ugandan AMISOM base in Janale district, 80 kilometres (50 miles) southwest of Mogadishu in the Lower Shabelle region.

And in June, Shabaab killed dozens of Burundian soldiers when they overran an AMISOM outpost northwest of Mogadishu.

The militants also stage frequent suicide attacks in the capital.

But the 22,000-strong AMISOM force has also made significant gains against the Shabaab, pushing them out of several strongholds in the southwest of the country.

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