The Somalia-based militant group al-Shabab on Tuesday confirmed that U.S. airstrikes hit one of its training camps, but denied that over 150 of its fighters were killed in the attack.
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“Their removal will degrade al Shabaab’s ability to meet the group’s objectives in Somalia, which include recruiting new members, establishing bases and planning attacks on USA and Amisom forces there”, Davis said.
According to the White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, the fighters who were scheduled to depart the camp posed an imminent threat to United States and African Union Mission forces in Somalia.
“The attack will severely minimize the threat of Shabaab”.
No US forces on the ground participated in the strike.
Intelligence indicated the group was training for some time and was in the final stages of getting ready to conduct a “large-scale attack”, Davis said. It appeared that their training was ending and the operational phase of a suspected attack against African or USA personnel was about to start, he said.
The bomb detonated at a checkpoint about 325km north of the capital Mogadishu, where last month al-Shabab fighters claimed responsibility for a blast that tore a gaping hole in a passenger plane shortly after takeoff.
Somalia’s intelligence service cooperated with the USA in air strikes that killed more than 150 al Shabab members on Saturday, an intelligence official said.
Al-Shabaab once formed part of al-Qaeda but has now split over whether to declare allegiance to the Islamic State group.
In the past two months, Al Shabab militants have killed more than 150 people, including Kenyan soldiers stationed at a remote desert outpost and beachcombers in Mogadishu.
A bomb exploded in a piece of luggage at an airport in a central Somali town, wounding three people, a police official said Monday.
“We never gather 100 fighters in one spot for security reasons”.
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Al-Shabab first took control of Mogadishu in 2006 after its fighters ousted local warlords. The African Union peacekeeping force, paid for mostly by Western governments, features troops from Uganda, Burundi, Kenya, Djibouti and other African nations. The airstrike comes as Somalia struggles to develop a domestic counterterrorism apparatus to combat the group.
