Our website use cookies to improve and personalize your experience and to display advertisements (if any). Our website may also include cookies from third parties like Google Adsense, Google Analytics, and Youtube. By using the website, you consent to the use of cookies.

Al Shabaab launches deadly attack on military base in Somalia

Al Shabaab launches deadly attack on military base in Somalia

 AT least 17 people were killed in Somalia after the Islamist group al Shabaab attacked a military base. The Busley base, in the Lower Shabelle region in the country's southwest, was briefly occupied by the attackers, security officials and the group said. Armed fighters from al Shabaab battled their way to the facility using suicide car bombs, a Somalia military officer told Reuters. He declined to be named because he was not authorised to speak to the media. "Several suicide car bombs attacked the base after fierce fighting...al Shabaab briefly captured the base," the officer said. "Then, government reinforcement fiercely…
Read More
Truck bomb kills at least 10 in Somalia

Truck bomb kills at least 10 in Somalia

A truck bomb exploded at a checkpoint in the central Somali town of Beledweyne, killing at least 10 people and obliterating nearby buildings, a police officer said. It was not immediately clear who was responsible but the Islamist group al Shabaab frequently carries out bombings in the Horn of Africa country. "So far I have seen 10 dead people including soldiers and civilians and over a dozen others injured, but the death toll is sure to rise," police officer Ahmed Aden told Reuters. Beledweyne is in central Somalia's Hiran region which has recently witnessed battles between the military and al…
Read More
Ugandan soldiers die in Somali attack

Ugandan soldiers die in Somali attack

UGANDA'S President Yoweri Museveni said late there had been casualties during an attack by Somalia's Islamist group al Shabaab on a military base manned by Ugandan peacekeepers in the Horn of African country. Museveni did not say how many soldiers were killed or wounded but it was the first official admission of losses in the attack among the Ugandan troops who are serving in the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS). "Condolences to the country and the families of those who died," Museveni said in a statement, adding the country's military had set up a panel to investigate what…
Read More
Five hurt in blast in Mogadishu mayor’s office

Five hurt in blast in Mogadishu mayor’s office

ABDI SHEIKH ISLAMIST fighters set off a bomb and then stormed a government building in Somalia's capital, killing at least five civilians, the ministry of information said. Attackers from the al Shabaab group charged into the block that houses the office of Mogadishu's mayor around noon and got caught in a firefight with security forces, the ministry and witnesses said. Security killed six of the militants and cleared the area by about 6 p.m., the ministry said on its Facebook page. Al Shabaab has stepped up attacks in a show of resilience since President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's government launched an…
Read More
Kenyan security forces kill 10 suspected al Shabaab fighters

Kenyan security forces kill 10 suspected al Shabaab fighters

KENYAN security forces have killed 10 fighters from Somalia's al Shabaab Islamist group in eastern Kenya, a government official said. They also recovered rocket-propelled grenades and improvised explosive devices after fighting the militants on Wednesday in the village of Galmagalla in Garissa county, said Thomas Bett, deputy county commissioner of the Bura East sub-county. "The operation to flush out the Somalia militants' group in the region was carried out by our multi-agency team ... and (they) managed to neutralise 10 Islamist group militants and recovered assault weapons," he told Reuters. Spokespersons for al Shabaab, who frequently have their phones switched…
Read More
Somalia’s al Shabaab attacks base in town it had lost, kills seven

Somalia’s al Shabaab attacks base in town it had lost, kills seven

Islamist al Shabaab militants killed at least seven soldiers at a Somali military base in a town re-captured by the government, the information ministry and militant group said. The attack was eventually repelled, an officer at the base in the central Somali town of Galcad told Reuters. He said the dead included the base's deputy commander, who was part of a U.S.-trained unit stationed there. The attack underscores the formidable threat al Shabaab poses for Somalia's military, even after a government offensive launched last year scored significant success against the al Qaeda-allied militants. Al Shabaab fighters stormed the Galcad base…
Read More
Al Shabaab kills seven soldiers in attack on military base

Al Shabaab kills seven soldiers in attack on military base

ABDI SHEIKH ISLAMIST fighters from al Shabaab stormed a military base in a part of central Somalia they were forced from last year, killing at least seven soldiers, including the base commander, an officer said. Assailants from the al Qaeda affiliate rammed the base in the village of Hawadley with a suicide car bomb and then opened fire, Captain Aden Nur, a military officer in a nearby town, told Reuters. "We repelled al Shabaab. We lost seven soldiers, including our commander," Nur told Reuters. Al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement, saying it had killed "many apostate…
Read More
Somalia takes control of key port from al Shabaab

Somalia takes control of key port from al Shabaab

ABDIQANI HASSAN SOMALIA'S government-led forces have captured an al Shabaab stronghold on the Indian Ocean coast, the defence minister said, in one of their most significant victories since launching an offensive against the Islamist group last year. The forces took the port town of Harardhere as well as the nearby town of Galcad in central Somalia's Galmudug region, Defence Minister Abdulkadir Mohamed Nur said in a broadcast on state-owned television. Harardhere was a major base for pirates hijacking merchant ships until 2011. It was later taken over by al Shabaab, which first rose up against the government in 2007 before…
Read More
KENYA: Islamist fighters kill four road workers

KENYA: Islamist fighters kill four road workers

FOUR workers from Kenya's highways agency were killed in an ambush by suspected Islamist militants near the country's eastern border with Somalia, police said. The workers were leading a three-car convoy from the town of Garissa to Bura when they hit an explosive device planted in the road by suspected members of the Somali insurgent group al Shabaab, according to a police report. "A vehicle with four employees of the Kenya National Highway Authority was attacked with an IED, all the four died on the spot," said John Otieno, a local government administrator. Spokespersons for al Shabaab could not immediately…
Read More
U.S. targets weapons trafficking with sanctions on Islamic State in Somalia

U.S. targets weapons trafficking with sanctions on Islamic State in Somalia

DAPHNE PSALEDAKIS THE United States issued sanctions targeting the Islamic State in Somalia, designating members of the group and others it accused of being involved in a "terrorist weapons trafficking network" in Eastern Africa. The U.S. Treasury Department in a statement said several of the people designated in Tuesday's action have sold weapons to or were active al Shabaab members. The al Qaeda-linked Islamist group claimed responsibility for two car bombs that exploded outside the education ministry in Somalia's capital Mogadishu on Saturday, killing at least 120 people in the deadliest blasts since a truck bomb killed more than 500 people at…
Read More