Several dead as Al Shabab storms African Union base in Somalia

Hundreds of newly-trained Al Shabab fighters perform military exercises in the Lafofe area, some 18 kilometres south of Mogadishu, Somalia, on February 17, 2015. Farah Abdi Warsameh, File/AP Photo

MOGADISHU // Somalia’s Al Qaeda-linked Al Shabab militants stormed an African Union base manned by Kenyan troops in the country’s south-west on Friday, with several killed in fierce gun battles.

“Regrettably some of our patriots in uniform paid the ultimate price,” said Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta as he offered condolences to the families of those killed, without giving details of how many died.

Somali army colonel Idris Ahmed said an Al Shabab suicide commando blasted into the El Adde base in the Gedo region, which borders Kenya and Ethiopia, in a predawn attack.

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

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

Al Shabab spokesman Abdiaziz Abu Musab claimed that 63 Kenyan troops had been killed, but this could not be immediately verified.

Al Shabab frequently exaggerates the number of troops they kill, while Amisom rarely gives exact tolls.

Local elder Hussein Adam said he heard a huge explosion followed by intense gunfire for about 45 minutes.

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

The attack came as politicians met in the southern port of Kismayo, with president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud leading a “National Consultative Forum” to debate planned elections due later this year.

“Somalia is no longer a failed state,” said Mr Mohamud, making no reference to the attack.

Al Shabab, fighting to overthrow Somalia’s internationally-backed government has launched a string of similar attacks.

Last September, the group’s fighters stormed a Ugandan Amisom base in Janale district, 80 kilometres south-west of Mogadishu in the Lower Shabelle region.

And in June, Al Shabab killed dozens of Burundian soldiers when they overran an Amisom outpost north-west of Mogadishu.

The militants have also staged attacks in Kenya, killing at least 67 people at Nairobi’s Westgate Mall in 2013 and massacring 148 people at a university in Garissa last April.

They say the attacks are retaliation for the Kenyan military presence in Somalia.

* Agence France-Presse