Mogadishu, Aug. 10, (dpa/GNA) – Somalia’s armed forces said it had on Sunday killed at least eight members of the militant group al-Shabaab after it carried out a suicide bombing on a checkpoint.
The army conducted a raid against the militants in the village of Shamgare in the south of the country, military official Ahmed Maslah Hussein told dpa.
Among those killed was a senior member of the terror group, he added.
The operation was intended as a retaliatory strike for a suicide bombing at a military checkpoint in Mogadishu on Saturday which killed at least 10 people, including a number of soldiers.
Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack, saying scores of elite soldiers had been killed.
The group, which seeks to establish a fundamentalist Islamist state in Somalia, has been fighting in the region for years and controls much of the south and centre of the country.
Somalia’s government is supported by US forces, which conduct airstrikes, and by African Union soldiers.
GNA