At least 30 people were killed on Sunday when Somalia’s Islamist al Shabaab group launched an attack in a town in the country’s semi-autonomous state of Galmudug, reported The VOA.
Major Mohamed Awale, a military officer in Galmudug, told Reuters that the insurgents used car bombs in the assault on a military base in the Wisil town, located in central Somalia, resulting in a fight with government troops and armed locals.
“They attacked the base with two car bombs and fierce fighting that lasted over an hour followed,” the military official said. “The car bombs damaged the military vehicles…residents were well-armed and reinforced the base and chased the al Shabaab.”
Awale said thirty people, including 17 soldiers and 13 civilians, died in the fighting on Sunday.
Galmudug’s Information Minister, Ahmed Shire Falagle, said regional forces repulsed the dawn attack and inflicted losses on the militants. Falagle said about 100 militants attacked the town and that many of them have not returned alive. He did not elaborate.
Somalia’s government condemned the attack and said 41 al Shabaab fighters had been killed in the fighting, according to a statement posted on the website of the Somalia state news agency, SONNA.
According to the statement, those injured in the attack had been airlifted to the capital Mogadishu for treatment.
The al-Shabab militant group claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it killed 34 members of the security forces.
The al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab has been fighting for more than a decade to try to oust Somalia’s central government and establish its own rule based on its strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law. The militant group is largely active in south-central Somalia and has a small footprint in Puntland in the northeast.
The militants frequently carry out gun and bomb assaults on a range of both civilian and military targets including military bases, busy traffic intersections, and hotels.
