The United States has carried out the deadliest recorded strike in the history of its drone campaign, killing about 150 al-Shabaab fighters during a single raid in Somalia.
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It is understood the militants were training for a large-scale terror attack.
The Saturday strikes centered on an al-Shabab training camp in Rasa, about 120 miles north of the capital Mogadishu, Pentagon officials said.
Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said that the camp had been under surveillance for weeks.
“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 United States and Amisom forces there”, Davis said. Kenyan authorities have yet to release official numbers. The announcement of the strike was delayed so United States officials could assess its outcome, they said. Defense officials said that the African Union’s military mission to Somalia was believed to have been the target of the planned attack.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest stated, “There will obviously be some limitations on where we can be transparent, given a variety of sensitivities – including diplomatic”.
Somalia’s Foreign Minister Abdusalam Omer told Reuters that “the Somali intelligence agency has provided information about the camp to the U.S.in the runup to the attack”.
Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the massacre in Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, which claimed 63 lives in 2013, and a similar assault on Garissa University in north-eastern Kenya, which killed 148 previous year.
The attack was carried out by multiple drones and manned aircraft launching missiles and bombs on “Raso Camp”.
“They were standing outdoors in formation”, one official said.
Earlier on Monday, six people were wounded when a bomb planted inside a notebook computer exploded at an airport in the small central town of Beledweyne.
Besseling said al-Shabab has infiltrated many districts in northern Mogadishu where the group operates safe houses to coordinate logistical support and plan attacks.
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In the past two months, al-Shabab militants have claimed responsibility for attacks that have killed more than 150 people, including Kenyan soldiers stationed at a remote desert outpost and beachcombers in Mogadishu.
