Suspected al-Shabaab terrorists attack Somalia military base
Suspected al-Shabaab militants have attacked a Somali military base in the central Galgaduud region days after the area was captured by government forces from the Takfiri terrorist group.
The army repelled Monday's attack on the base housing national and local troops in Qayib, a village captured from al-Shabaab last week, defense ministry spokesman Abdullahi Ali Anod was quoted as saying by state news agency SONNA.
The attack began with two suicide car bombs at around 5:00 a.m. local time (0200 GMT), followed by hours of heavy fighting, Ahmed Hassan, a military officer in the nearby town of Bahdo, told Reuters.
Hassan said there were no immediate reports of casualties following the raid.
The attack comes days after twin bombings outside the education ministry in Mogadishu killed at least 120 people.
Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the October 29 bombings, the deadliest terrorist incident in the country since a truck bomb killed more than 500 people at the same location five years ago.
Meanwhile, the defense ministry said on Friday that government troops, which were reinforced by recruiting the local clan militia forces known as macawisley or “men with sarongs,” killed at least 100 al-Shabab terrorists in heavy clashes in the central Hiran region.
In 2006, al-Shabab launched its deadly campaign by unleashing a reign of terror among civilians to overthrow Somalia’s Western-backed central government.
So far, the Takfiri group has killed tens of thousands of people.
An African Union (AU) force pushed the al-Shabab militants out of the capital in 2011, but the group still controls swathes of the countryside and frequently carries out gun and bomb attacks against both civilian and military targets.
Its targets include busy traffic intersections, hotels, and military bases.
The impoverished country has been in the grip of a devastating drought that has driven around one million people from their homes and left the country on the verge of famine, according to the United Nations.
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