Dozens Of Kenyan Soldiers Killed By Militants After Raid At A Military Base

Al-Shabaab fighters have captured a military base run by Kenyan and Somali troops in the Somali town of Kulbiyow, 18 kilometers from the Kenyan border. According to residents in the town said al-Shabaab militants attacked the town and captured the base early Friday. 

A truck filled with explosives detonated at the base, followed by heavy gunfire and an infantry attack....


Moreover, the al-Shabaab website said their fighters have overrun the base and had killed at least 57 Kenyans at the base in the southern town of Kulbiyow, near the Kenyan border. However, it is a claim that the Kenyan Army has denied. 


“We are pursuing the Kenyan soldiers who ran away into the woods,” Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al-Shabaab military operation spokesman, told Reuters news agency about the attack near the Kenyan border.

One Somali military officer told VOA Somali that small surveillance drones spotted the oncoming al-Shabaab fighters, and their troops fired mortars at the insurgents, but that failed to stop them and the militants later drove “two explosive-laden trucks into the base.” Despite the Kenyan and Somali troops engaging the al-Shabaab militants to hold off the fights, the militants detonated more explosives and continued heavy gunfire.

Residents said the fighting lasted more than 90 minutes as the militants overpowered the Somali and Kenyan troops. Al-Shabaab fighters are now in full control of the base and are burning military vehicles, residents said.

Kulbiyow is a Somali town in Lower Jubba close to the border with Kenya. Just two days ago, Kenyan troops at Kulbiyow attacked an al-Shabaab base at Badhadhe before retreating back to Kulbiyow.

Al-Shabaab’s assessment of casualties often differs markedly from official versions. The group, which once ruled over much of Somalia, has lost major urban strongholds and ports to the UN-backed government in Mogadishu.

It wants to topple the Mogadishu-based government and drive out the peacekeepers made up of soldiers from Kenya, Djibouti, Uganda, Ethiopia and other African countries.

AMISOM and Somali troops have often struggled to defend smaller and more remote areas from attacks.

Al-Shabaab has been fighting for years to impose its strict interpretation of Islam on Somalia. The group was driven out from Mogadishu in 2011.