MOGADISHU - The militant group al Shabaab said its fighters killed dozens of Kenyan troops when they attacked a remote military base in Somalia on Friday, while Kenya's army dismissed the report and said "scores" of militants were killed. Al-Shabaab attacked a Kenyan army base in southern Somalia yesterday ,claiming it killed no fewer than 51 soldiers in the process.Armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles,the terrosists struck the Kulbiyow base catching the soldiers unawares.But the Kenyan defence authorities denied the death of any of its soldiers saying that instead the attack was repelled and ‘scores’ of the extremists killed.The Islamist militants gave details of the attack in a statement on Radio Andalus, a pro-insurgency broadcaster, and said that equipment and ammunition was also seized in the raid.However, Kenya Defence Forces spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Njuguna confirmed the attack but denied there had been casualties.“A big operation is currently ongoing, nobody has had time to count casualties, mostly on their side,” he said by phone from Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.He dismissed as ‘propaganda’ al-Shabaab’s claim that it had killed tens of Kenyan soldiers .Al-Shabaab, which is affiliated with al-Qaeda, has waged an insurgency in the Horn of Africa nation since 2006 in a bid to impose its version of Islamic law.Although it was driven out of Mogadishu in 2011 by government and African Union forces, it continues to stage deadly gun and bomb attacks.In January 2016, the al-Qaeda-linked insurgents attacked a Kenyan camp near the border at El Adde and claimed 100 Kenyan soldiers were killed.The Kenyan government acknowledged the fatalities, without giving its own toll. “That is false,” Kenyan military spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Njuguna told Reuters, in reference to al Shabaab’s claim that 57 soldiers were killed although he did not give any casualty figures. In January last year a Kenyan base at El-Adde was attacked and overrun by Shabaab fighters who claimed to have killed over 100 Kenyan soldiers. The Kenyan military never gave details of casualties, but credible reports by analysts and media in the region, as well as statements by local politicians, suggested the toll may have been higher. “Two mujahideen (fighters) rammed suicide car bombs into the base in Kulbiyow town before storming it,” he said, adding that as well as counting 57 Kenyan bodies, the group seized vehicles and weapons. Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab told Reuters news agency the group was still pursuing “the Kenyan soldiers who ran away into the woods” after Friday morning’s attack. The Islamist group, which once ruled much of Somalia, wants to topple the Western-backed government in Mogadishu and drive out the peacekeeping force made up of soldiers from Kenya, Djibouti, Uganda, Ethiopia and other African countries. Driven out from the capital Mogadishu in 2011, al Shabaab has been fighting for years to impose its strict interpretation of Islam on Somalia. Repeated campaigns by tens of thousands of African Union and Somali troops, some trained by US special forces, have driven al-Shabaab from major urban strongholds and ports, but they have often struggled to defend smaller, more remote areas.
Al-Shabaab militants attack a remote AMISOM base in southern Somalia, claiming to have killed dozens of Kenyan troops.