Somali and Kenyan military officials said fighters seized the Somali army base near the town of Ceel Cadde, about 550 km (340 miles) west of Mogadishu in a region near Kenya’s border.
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“There was suicide attack followed by the fighting and it seems that the base was stormed”, Ahmed said.
“The mujahedeen fighters carried out a successful operation this morning on a military base at El-Adde, and they have killed many Christian soldiers from Kenya”, Shabab spokesman Abdiaziz Abu Musab said in a statement.
The battle lasted for about three hours as Kenya Defence Forces troops tried to repel the attack, before the base was overrun, Mohamed Isaq, a resident of El-Adde, said by phone from the town.
Born as an offshoot from the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), the al-Shabaab group, which in Arabic means “youth”, has been seeking to overthrow the Western-backed Somalian government and impose a strict form of Islamic sharia law.
However, Somalia Army commander in Gedo region Ibrahim Mohamud said the attack took place at the KDF military base which had only a few Somali soldiers inside the camp who escaped the attack. That statement also said that the Kenyans helped the Somalis counterattack.
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Despite being pushed out of Somalia’s major cities and towns, al-Shabab continues to launch deadly guerrilla attacks across the Horn of Africa country.
The offensive started with a suicide bomber exploding in a vehicle at the entrance to the base. Musab added that the forces ran away from the bases.
Witnesses reported blasts and heavy gunfire.
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He said the fighting remains ongoing.
A year ago the militants claimed that they had killed 50 Ugandan soldiers in another attack in southern Somalia, and taken hostages.
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“To Al-Shabaab, I say, we will not relent”.
