Mogadishu, Feb. 12, (dpa/GNA) - The United States Africa Command (Africom) on Sunday confirmed that 12 militia had been killed in a “self-defence” airstrike in a remote area of Somalia.
But the Somali government said 20 “Islamists” had been killed in the airstrike, Deputy Information Minister Abdirahman Yusuf Omar told national radio on Sunday.
It was not immediately clear why the figures varied, though the US figures appear to be preliminary.
“The initial assessment is the strike killed 12 al-Shabaab fighters,” the statement read.
The airstrike took place on Friday, almost 500 kilometres from the capital of Mogadishu, the US military command reported.
Somalia’s population of roughly 16 million people has been shaken by terrorist attacks and other acts of violence for years, especially by the Islamist terrorist militia al-Shabaab.
According to Africom, the US is one of several countries providing humanitarian, economic and military assistance to Somalia’s government in its ongoing campaign against terrorism.
Africom said that, since Somalia remains central to stability and security in all of East Africa, the US military would continue to assist the government with all that is needed to defeat al-Shabaab, “the largest and most deadly al-Qaeda network in the world.”
GNA