MOGADISHU: Somalia’s hardline Islamists said they fought intense battles yesterday with government and African Union troops in the central Hiran region that left 18 people dead on both sides.
Shabab spokesman Abdulaziz Abu Musab told AFP the deaths occurred after the group’s fighters attacked a base of the AU force in Buloburde town, some 200 kilometres north of the capital Mogadishu.
The casualties could not be immediately confirmed, but the Al Qaeda-linked extremists said the dead included five of their own men.
The government said six Shabab had been killed, but gave no figures of any casualties on their side.
“Nine soldiers with the African Union, four of their Somali counterparts, and five mujahedeen from our Shabab were killed in the fight,” Musab said. Fighting began around midnight Friday, lasting about four hours into yesterday morning,
he said.
“Our fighters went into the camp, that is where the killing took place,” Musab added.
Troops from the 22,000-strong AU force captured Buloburde from the Shabab earlier in the year, but the Islamists control large parts of the rural area surrounding the town.
Somalia’s Information Minister Mustafa Duhulow praised the security forces for repelling waves of attacks by Shabab fighters.
“Al Shabab tried to come back several times in order to take their dead bodies, but they were defeated on all attempts,” he said.
The latest fighting comes amid growing warnings of a humanitarian crisis.
AFP
