US airstrikes kill four 'al-Shabab militants' in Somalia: AFRICOM
The US military says it has conducted airstrikes against what it called positions of al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab terror group, killing four of its militants, a day after a massive car bombing killed scores of people in Mogadishu.
US Africa Command (AFRICOM) said the three air raids were carried out in two locations in the East African nation on Sunday.
“These precision airstrikes targeted al-Shabaab militants responsible for terrorist acts against innocent Somali citizens and coordinating with al-Qaeda," it said in a statement.
The airstrikes came a day after a huge truck bomb in a busy area near a security checkpoint in the capital, Mogadishu, claimed the lives of as many as 81 people and left 125 others injured.
Ismail Muktar, a spokesman for Somalia's Information Ministry, told AFP Monday that one of the new fatalities was among the injured who had been evacuated to Turkey via a Turkish military plane on Sunday.
The death toll could climb, he said, as several people remain unaccounted for since the explosion.
Al-Shabaab was forced out of Mogadishu in 2011, but it continues to wage deadly attacks around the city and in other parts of the country.
The US military has stepped up its airstrikes in the Horn of Africa nation after getting President Donald Trump’s approval in 2017 for expanded military operations there.
There have, however, been many ambiguities surrounding US airstrikes and bombardments in the rural regions of the country, with human rights groups regularly complaining about the civilian causalities caused by such raids.
In March, Amnesty International said the US military may be guilty of war crimes for killing large numbers of civilians in the sharply-intensified campaign of airstrikes in Somalia over the past two years.
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