The Al-Qaeda aligned Al-Shabaab dealt a huge blow after a military raid on their camp saw 16 militants killed and over a dozen children forcibly recruited rescued in the troubled Lower Shabelle, Somalia.
Lower Shabelle, a region in southern Somalia over the past few months have seen increased militant’s activity where the Islamist militants have terrorized local and foreign security forces, civilians, and even government officials.
Corresponding open sources reports indicate that 16 Al-Shabaab militants were killed in an intelligence-led operation that was aimed at rescuing children captured and forced into the terrorist training camp in Barire locality, Lower Shabelle.
The children were abducted and detained in an Al-Shabaab training camp with an aim of converting them into child soldiers. The Friday’s joint military raid followed credible information from locals on the location of the terrorist camp and the activities that have been going on for some months.
Al-Shabaab severally has been abducting children, indoctrinating them, besides training them in their camps to take part in their endless war. Efforts to reduce the rate of children recruitment to the militant group have not fully yielded much results citing intimidations of locals to forcibly give out their children.
