An unknown number of soldiers have been killed following an early morning Al Shabaab attack at the Somali National Army (SNA) camp, which is in close proximity to the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) camp at Elade in Somalia. We also saw Kenyan soldiers who were fleeing from the camp.
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Following his training, Jones became a member of a specialized fighting force within the militant group known as Jaysh Ayman that carried out attacks and raids across the border in Kenya, prosecutors said.
“We counted 63 Kenyan bodies inside the base”.
He participated in a battle against Kenyan soldiers in the Somali town of Afmadow, where he was injured by a missile, resulting in him being hospitalized, Jones told authorities, according to court papers.
He was speaking while fighting in the base was ongoing.
“We intend to go ahead and fight these charges”, Irving Cohen, his lawyer, told reporters after the hearing.
Residents in Ceel Cedo wrote on social media platforms Friday that they could hear sporadic gunfire in the area.
The Shebab, fighting to overthrow Somalia’s internationally-backed and AU-protected government, has launched a string of similar attacks.
And in June, Shebab killed dozens of Burundian soldiers when they overran an AMISOM outpost northwest of Mogadishu.
Al-Shabab, which considers government officials and anyone working for the government as apostate, often carries out suicide attacks and targeted assassination against officials.
The Shebab 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 in April 2015.
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He said the militants were confiscating 28 of 31 military vehicles inside the camp and all arms and ammunition.
