At least
77 Al-Shabaab militants were on Saturday 19th January 2019 killed
after the Al-Qaeda linked jihadist group attempted to lay siege on a military
base outside the town of Kismayo.
Military reports from Somalia show that heavily-armed Al-Shabaab militants tried to breach into a military camp prompting a heavy exchange of gunfire that lasted hours.
According to Colonel Mohamed Ibrahim Bulle of 43 division of Somali National Army forces, the terrorists targeted a military base in Bar-Sanguni of Middle Jubba with heavy weaponry and explosives. The Somali military and Jubaland forces resisted the enemy before later retreating back from the base.
Six soldiers were killed during the attack and four others injured after a booby-trapped vehicle was detonated to the base,” he added.
The US military has stepped up the fight by airstrikes against Al-Shabaab militants.
The Somali forces have also received reinforcement from Kismayo and returned to the base.
The attempted raid came a day after Al-Shabaab claimed it had attacked Ethiopian troops in Somalia in an ambush attack on the road between the capital and the southwest town of Baidoa.
